Pinchas: Offerings for ourselves, and offerings for the world

Sacrifices are incredibly uninteresting. They have no relevance to the lives that we lead, even if we strive to fulfill all our religious obligations. Despite that fact of life, the most often repeated sections of the Torah deal with sacrifices. The second half of Parashat Pinchas deals entirely with the cycle of sacrifices for special days: Shabbat, Rosh Hodesh, and all the holidays; we read the appropriate passages from these chapters on every applicable holiday (except for Shabbat, when it is recited as part of the Tefillat Musaf.)

We likely pay little attention to the specifics of these sacrifices, but there is something interesting about the pattern that we find here.

A couple of notes are in order. First, the daily offering was made on all of these days. If any holiday fell on Shabbat, then the Shabbat offerings were included as well. Rosh Hashannah included both the daily and Rosh Hodesh offerings, as well as the Shabbat offering if it were to fall on Shabbat. Second, the goats are for the Hattat (sin) offering, which explains why they remain a constant.

Most of these offerings seem very simple in structure. But then we get to the seven days of Sukkot. What can explain this enormous sacrificial inflation that we see in the sacrificial scorecard above?

Sukkot celebrates the fall harvest and the onset of the winter rainy season in Eretz Yisra’el. It is understandable why Israel would want to celebrate with all its bounty, in the hope that Hashem will bless the land with appropriate rains for the year ahead. Yes, that may be a factor in the increase.
But there is something interesting about the Sukkot pattern that is hard to ignore. The numbers of rams and lambs offered are doubled on these days from those offered on all other holidays. And then we get to the bulls. On day one we start with 13, and on each successive day we reduce the amount by one.  This adds up to 70 bulls offered during these seven days. Finally, on Shmini Atzeret, we return to the schedule that applied to the holidays that took place at the beginning of the month.

Of course, the Torah never explains specifics of sacrifices, but rabbis looked for clues in the text to explain the oddity here. Jewish tradition, based on the genealogies of Gn 10-11, maintained that 70 nations descended from Noah. Next, Nu 29:35 describes Shmini Atzeret in an unusual way:

בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם

The eighth day shall be an assembly for you...

Why is this day for you? Rashi’s comment on this verse explains:

ומדרשו באגדה: לפי שכל ימות הרגל הקריבו כנגד שבעים אומות ובאין ללכת, אמר להם המקום: בבקשה מכם עשו לי סעודה קטנה כדי שאהנה מכם

Its explanation in the aggada: because during each day of the festival they made offerings to correspond with the 70 nations of the world and they would go, Hashem said to them: I ask of you, make a small feast so that I can enjoy you.

This is an abridgment of the explanation found in the Talmud (bSukkah 55b):

א"ר <אליעזר> [אלעזר] הני שבעים פרים כנגד מי? כנגד שבעים אומות. פר יחידי למה? כנגד אומה יחידה. משל למלך בשר ודם שאמר לעבדיו: עשו לי סעודה גדולה. ליום אחרון אמר לאוהבו: עשה לי סעודה קטנה כדי שאהנה ממך. א"ר יוחנן: אוי להם <לעובדי כוכבים> {לאומות העולם} שאבדו ואין יודעין מה שאבדו! בזמן שבהמ"ק קיים מזבח מכפר עליהן, ועכשיו מי מכפר עליהן

R. Eleazar stated, To what do those seventy bullocks correspond? To the seventy nations. To what does the single bullock correspond? To the unique nation. This may be compared to a mortal king who said to his servants: Prepare for me a great banquet; but on the last day he said to his beloved: Prepare for me a simple meal that I may enjoy you’. R. Yohanan said: Woe to the {nations of the world}, for they lost something and they do not know what they have lost. When the Temple was in existence the altar atoned for them, but now who shall atone for them?

I have no way of knowing if any other people in the ancient world would adopt a practice of engaging in worship on behalf of other peoples. But here we have a tradition where the word of Hashem was interpreted to demand such engagement on behalf of every nation. The comment of Rabbi Yohanan elaborates that these offerings served an expiatory function for those nations, but it is more likely that it had a more general function. If it were strictly for the purpose of atonement, then we might expect the offerings to be made of goats, not bulls, as the goats were used for the Hattat offerings as mentioned above.

The context of this section makes this even more interesting. A few chapters earlier, in last week’s parasha, we read about the failed efforts to curse Israel by a neighboring nation, and then the efforts to lead Israel into apostasy through lust. This parasha opens with a commendation of Pinchas for his act of zeal against a flagrant act of apostasy by spearing the Israelite man and Midianite woman. The sacrificial calendar follows a census and the allocation of tribal lands, all of which are mentioned in preparation for the impending arrival in their patrimonial land. If anything, all these things would point more towards an inward focus, not an outward one.

Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah (21:24) offers an interesting twist on the verse:

זש”ה: תחת אהבתי ישטנוני ואני תפילה. את מוצא בחג ישראל מקריבין לפניך שבעים פרים על שבעים אומות העולם. אמרו ישראל: רבונו העולמים, הרי אנו מקריבין עליהם שבעים פרים והיו צריכים לאהוב אותנו, והם שונאים אותנו, שנאמר: תחת אהבתי ישטנוני. לפיכך אמר הקב”ה: עכשיו הקריבו בעצמכם ביום השמיני עצרת תהיה לכם

The verse says: In return for my love they are my accusers; but I give myself to prayer. (Ps 109:4) You find that on the festival [Sukkot] Israel offers You seventy bulls for the seventy nations of the world. Israel said: Master of Worlds, we offer seventy bulls for them and they should love us, but they hate us, as it says: In return for my love they are my accusers. Hence, the Holy One, Blessed Be He, said: Now,  offer on your own behalf on the eighth day, an assembly for you...

The verse in Psalms is interpreted as a reference to Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret, that the offerings of the  seven days of Sukkot were on behalf of the nations who, despite this, despised Israel, but the eighth day focused on Israel alone.

The lesson is fairly evident. As Jews, we cannot ignore that we live in a world inhabited by other peoples, and to some extent, especially today - for better or worse - we will interact, perhaps become interdependent, on others. Yes, there are times when we are in conflict with others, but the welfare of others, even those who despise us, is also our concern. Why bother? Because all these peoples were created by Hashem, and eventually they will all come to recognize Hashem and adopt a Godly way of life. Zechariah (14:16) foresaw Sukkot as the holiday that would be eventually celebrated by all peoples:

וְהָיָה כָּל־הַנּוֹתָר מִכָּל־הַגּוֹיִם הַבָּאִים עַל־יְרוּשָׁלָם וְעָלוּ מִדֵּי שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֹת לְמֶלֶךְ ה’ צְבָאוֹת וְלָחֹג אֶת־חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת

It will be that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall make pilgrimage there from year to year to worship the King, the Hashem of hosts, and to keep the festival of Sukkot.

We will live in a world that suffers from conflict, and sometimes we will be party to those conflicts. It is nevertheless our responsibility, even in our own communities or our own land, where some might choose to cloister themselves from all others, to not do that, to not engage in cursing others as Balak and Bilaam tried, but the opposite: to be a source for blessings for all peoples, whether or not they like it, and whether or not they realize it.