When someone among you brings an offering…from the cattle, or from the flock you shall bring your offering…the kohen shall cause all of it to go up in smoke on the mizbeach, an olah, a fire-offering, a pleasing aroma to Hashem.[2]
A midrash[3] about Krias Shema is the perfect jumping-off point in understanding the purpose of korbanos. Paraphrased, it runs something like this: A talmid chacham had a devoted son, who honored his father by providing him with meals each day, once in the morning, and once in the evening. At some point, the financial fortunes of the son declined, and he was unable to continue his practice. The father called over his son, and said to him, “My son! I recognize that you cannot continue to honor me with those two daily meals. My only request of you is that you should listen to my derashos in shul twice daily. It will be as pleasing to me as the two meals with which you previously supplied me.” Similarly, Hashem tells Yisrael: “Previously, you offered a korban tamid to Me twice a day. But it is well known to Me that the Beis Hamikdosh will in time be destroyed. From then on, you will not be able to bring offerings to Me. I ask that you make substitution for them – Shema in the morning, and Shema in the evening. I will consider those recitations more important than all the korbanos!”
This is a wonderful pat on the back for us, having lost the Beis Hamikdosh some two millennia ago. But how do we understand it? Krias Shema is important as a declaration of faith. It evinces our emunah in Hashem, and our readiness to therefore follow all His instructions. Korbanos, on the other hand, are part of those instructions. They belong to what we call avodah, the ways in which we actively implement His mitzvos. Sounds like apples and oranges.
Except that they are not. The Zohar[4] teaches that when a person recites the verse, “You shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart, and all your soul, etc.,” and has in mind that he is prepared to sacrifice himself for kiddush Hashem, the Torah treats him as if he was moser nefesh each day. The Rashba[5] explains the verse, “For you we are killed every day.”[6] It means, he says, that we recite krias Shema every day, which speaks of giving up our lives for His sake. Since we are agreeable to such a fate, we are credited as if we had actually made a korban of our lives.
Most pointed are the words of Maharal:[7] “The entire concept of a korban is to make known that when one contemplates the Existence of Hashem, relative to His Existence, absolutely nothing can be said to exist.”
The commonality between the Shema and korbanos develops. The Shema asks us to give up our existence for His sake. But it goes beyond mere preparedness to be steadfast in our commitment to Him, even if that will lead to our death. Rather, it asks – like the Maharal explains in regard to the korban – that we see our existence as nugatory. We do not renounce our claim to our lives with our mesiras nefesh. Rather, we come to understand that when we focus on Who He is, our own existence becomes trivial and insignificant. We don’t “give up” anything, because relative to Him, we don’t see ourselves as having anything to give.
That this is the deeper meaning of Shema we see in the story of R. Akiva’s death at the hands of his Roman torturers.[8] He greeted the moment with satisfaction, telling his students that he had prepared for it his entire life, as he wondered when he would be able to fulfill the mitzvah of loving Hashem with all his heart and all his soul. He gave up his spirit only after lengthening his pronouncement of “echad,” the last word of the first line of the Shema. Maharal explains[9] that love for Hashem comes from the attraction of a person to his Source. When he contemplates Hashem’s unique Oneness, he realizes that independently he is nothing. Whatever he is, it is all directly from Him. He is drawn strongly to the sole Source of his existence. When R. Akiva pronounced the word echad – when he focused fully on that Oneness – R. Akiva’s soul returned to its Cause.
This explains why R. Akiva prolonged his recitation of the word echad. Would it not have been more appropriate to instead give up his soul a few words further on? Wasn’t the proper place to return his life to his Maker when reciting the instruction of love Hashem with all our hearts and souls?
The explanation is that the commandment to be moser nefesh indeed comes from that instruction. The ultimate performance of that mitzvah, however, does not come from that line. From it, we might only learn that a person should be ready to give up his nefesh in service of Hashem. The echad of Shema, however, lets Man know that he has no nefesh to give up! There is no existence in this world, other than His Existence.
Like the korban, our recitation of the Shema teaches us to give to Hashem. The Shema manages to add a subtle point to what it means to give.
- Adapted from Be’er Moshe, by the Ozharover Rebbe zt”l ↑
- Vayikra 1:2,9 ↑
- Yalkut Shimoni, Ve’eschanan #835 ↑
- Zohar1:124b ↑
- Shut Ha-Rashba1 #55 ↑
- Tehillim 44:23 ↑
- Gevuros Hashem, chap. 40 ↑
- Berachos 61b ↑
- Nesivos Olam, Nesiv Ahavas Hashem, chap. 1 ↑