Jewish Thanksgiving – Tzav
In America the goyim celebrate a festival called Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday in November every year. This is not in memory of some specific event that happened in their history, it is intended as a “generic” day of giving thanks for all the blessings of the past year, but more importantly - for eating roast turkey with cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, watching football on TV and planning your black Friday shopping.
Lehavdil, we Jews also have a festival of thanksgiving, called Pesach. As it is written –
"לפיכך אנחנו חייבים להודות, להלל, לשבח, לפאר, וכו'" (משנה פסחים י, ה)
On Pesach, we are obligated to give thanks to HKB”H for miraculously freeing us from slavery in Egypt and redeeming us.
Actually we Jews don’t wait for once a year to give thanks to HKB”H. We do it every day, multiple times a day, from the moment we wake up with מודה אני, morning noon and night in shacharit, mincha and maariv with מודים.
Pesach however is something beyond that, something extra. Our daily minute-by-minute existence is miraculous in itself, but it is part of what we have come to regard as the “natural order”. On Pesach however HKB”H deviated from this “natural order” and performed miracles that although they seem extraordinary to us, are in fact intrinsically no more miraculous than our heart beating or our nerve ends synapsing, they are just beyond what we have come to consider the “norm”.
Actually the Torah made provisions to give thanks for miracles that occur above and beyond the “natural order”, by bringing a special sacrifice in the Mikdash, the Korban Toda.
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב: ארבעה צריכין להודות יורדי הים הולכי מדברות ומי שהיה חולה ונתרפא ומי שהיה חבוש בבית האסורים ויצא. (ברכות נד, ע"ב)
The Gemara brings four categories of people who need to bring a Korban Toda – 1. someone who went on a journey at sea and returned safely, 2. someone who went on a journey in the desert and returned safely, 3. someone who was critically ill and recovered and 4. someone who was imprisoned and released.
The common denominator between these four groups - is safe emergence from a state of dire peril. According to the mefarshim, categories 1,3,4, sea voyage, illness, imprisonment are very specific, whereas 2, a journey in the desert is a “general” category that encompasses all other life threatening situations.
In this week’s parsha Tzav (which just happens to be my Bar Mitzvah parsha), it describes the Korban Toda. The Toda is a korban that belongs to a category of Korbanot called the שלמים, but unlike the other שלמים, the Toda has a large bread component, very large in fact.
There are four different types of bread in the Toda. Three are matzot (without chametz) and the fourth is a chametz bread. There are 10 breads of each type in the Korban, making a total of 40 breads.
The fact that there are 40 breads in the Toda is not incidental. According to the sefer אזניים לתורה when someone is saved from a life threatening situation, it is like he/she is reborn. According to Chazal a newborn fetus is considered a viable human being after 40 days of development.
The division of breads also has deeper meaning. The entire Korban Toda is made of 20 עשרונים of solet, 10 עשרונים go to making the 10 chametz breads and 10 עשרונים go to making the 30 matzot. In other words there is an equal 50-50 split in the weight of the matzo and chametz components.
The Maharal says that since matzo and chametz are diametric opposites, but all part of HKB”H’s creation, by bringing both we acknowledge Hashem’s authority in this world. The Maharal continues with an interesting אמינא הווה. A חתן וכלה are also essentially diametric opposites, so someone who rejoices in a חתונה has essentially brought a Korban Toda.
The Sfat Emet gives a different reason for this eclectic mix of matzo and chametz. The matzo represents all miracles that are visible and transparent. Matzo has no “hidden” component - it is simply solet, water and salt and thus represents all miracles that are visible. Chametz on the other hand contains a “hidden” component – the fermenting sourdough/yeast inside the bread which cannot be seen with the naked eye (all we see are the outward repercussions of it - the rising of the bread). This represents all miracles that are hidden and not apparent to us. Since nature contains both visible and hidden miracles, we must give thanks for both.
Another interesting facet of the Toda is the three types of matzot. Each has oil together with the matzo, but included in different ways. The רקיק is mixed and baked without oil, but has oil spread on top of it after it is baked (רקיקי מצות משוחים בשמן). The חלת מצה has oil mixed in the dough before it is baked (חלות מצות בלולות בשמן). The מֻרבֵּכֶת has no oil mixed in the dough - the oil is incorporated into it only when it is fried, after baking.
HaRav Moshe Odess שליט"א in his sefer בלבבי משכן אבנה brings the Maharal who explains that the “oil” component of the matzo represents spirituality and holiness. In addition he brings Reb Chaim of Volozhin who explains the different methods of incorporating the oil. The רקיק has oil spread on top of it and therefore represents the highest level of spirituality. The חלת מצה has the oil hidden inside it and therefore represents the lowest level of holiness. The מֻרבֶּכֶת has no oil in it to begin with, but absorbs the oil into it while it is being fried and is therefore representative of an intermediary level of holiness.
Reb Chaim of Volozhin says that these are reflected in the three levels of the soul – the highest level נשמה, the intermediary level רוח and the lowest level נפש (נר"ן). He illustrates this with the משל of a glass blower. The process begins with the breath in the mouth of the glass blower (נשמה), which is then transferred to the red hot piece of glass being crafted (נפש) via a glass tube (רוח). This process is also reflected in the עשר ספירות in the ספרי הקבלה that represent a series of filtrations of the highest spiritual level of the אור הגנוז (כתר/נשמה), to the final, lowest level of materialism (מלכות/נפש).
According to the זהר הקדוש, חלות מצות are normally brought as part of a Korban חטאת, and their presence in the Toda indicates that the person found him/herself in dire peril in the first place, as punishment for some sin.
The Korban Toda has a lot of bread!
20 עשרונים of solet is by the lowest estimate (רמב"ם) 30.672kg and by the highest estimate (חזון איש) 61.05kg. Add to that water and salt and the final weight of all the breads is between 40-75kg (I know because I have baked it in our lab at Machon Lechem Hapanim).
Bread was only part of the Toda. In addition, the person had to bring a זבח, an ox, sheep, dove etc. depending on how wealthy he/she was. So besides the bread there was a lot of meat as well. The Kohen was given his portion of the breads (1 bread from each of the 4 types, which were waved - תנופה in front of the מזבח) and the parts of the animal due to him. This left the person bringing the Korban with 36 humongous breads and more than 2/3 of an ox.
Unlike the other שלמים which could be eaten over two days and a night (in between), the Toda had to be eaten the same day, until midnight!
It is physically impossible for one person to consume such a vast quantity of food in such a small time by himself. The fact that the Toda was designed in such a way is not incidental. It was intended to be eaten by more than one person – many more! In fact the person bringing the Toda would invite all his family and friends to ירושלים where they would all participate in this סעודת הודיה and the בעל השמחה would get up on stage and tell everyone his story. How his ship got caught in a storm … how the ship overturned … how he was adrift for 2 weeks in the lifeboat without food …. how he was saved by a passing ship…. etc. thus publicizing the miracle and glorifying the name of Hashem.
The Mefarshim say that when בני ישראל went out of Egypt they were like someone who was obligated to bring a Korban Toda, not because they matched one of the four categories, but because they matched all four! They had crossed Yam Suf (יורדי הים), they journeyed in the desert for 40 years (הולכי מדברות), they had been released from bondage in Egypt (חבוש בבית האסורים ויצא) and when they stood at Har Sina at Matan Torah, HKB”H cured them of all their ailments (חולה ונתרפא).
Therefore on Pesach we should be bringing a Korban Toda (although the Toda was not brought on Pesach as we know – see the preamble to Mizmor LeToda, which days we do not recite it – because of its chametz component). So instead of actually bringing a Korban Toda on Pesach, we bring a similar Korban, the Korban Pesach which also combines meat and matzos (על מצות ומררים יאכלהו). The Toda and the Pesach have other similarities, they can be brought in all parts of the azara, they both have to be eaten the same night until midnight and not left to the following morning, etc.
We can find many other hints to the Korban Toda in the Pesach Seder, which we will all be celebrating this coming Motzei Shabbat.
We have three matzos on the seder plate, reminiscent of the three types of matzos in the Toda. The Tur, quoting the Rosh, says there was a custom in Ashkenaz and France to bake the three matzos for the seder out of 1 עשרון of flour. The 30 matzos in the Toda were made from 10 עשרונים, therefore 3 matzos were 1 עשרון. Each of these matzos would weigh approximately 500g. Pretty big matzos!
But hang on, what about the chametz bread in the Toda? So obviously we cannot eat a chametz bread on Pesach, but according to the sefer חידושי הרים we eat a chametz bread on …….. Shavuot (שתי הלחם) - which is essentially the last day of Pesach, עצרת (just like שמיני עצרת is the last day of Sukkot). I have a different perush – the “chametz” bread component from the Toda eaten on Pesach – was the Lechem Hapanim, eaten by the Kohanim. The lechem Hapanim was a thick, risen loaf, not chametz, but resembling a chametz bread.
The Maharsha says that we drink four cups of wine to represent the four types of bread in the Toda.
When we sing מה נשתנה at the seder, one of the verses is –
שבכל הלילות אנו אוכלים חמץ ומצה, הלילה הזה כולו מצה.
After Pesach is over, the rest of the year, how many people do you know who eat both chametz and matzo? On motzei Pesach in our bakery we start baking bagels and the people queue round the block to be “mehader” to get the first chametz, hot out of the oven. Actually it is not such a bad thing – it is a chessed to the bakers who have reduced income from Rosh Chodesh Nisan until after Pesach, by supporting them.
The only time most of us would probably ever use a matzo not on Pesach, is when we need lechem mishne. Very few people eat matzo year round. So why do we say in מה נשתנה that the rest of the year אנו אוכלים חמץ ומצה?
The Mefarshim say that the question is actually about the Korban Toda. The child is really asking – “Why the rest of the year we bring a Toda with matzo and chametz, tonight the Toda is only with matzo?”
Other Mefarshim connect the four sons to the four types of bread in the Toda, but that is too lengthy to include in this shiur.
Parshat Tzav is usually the parsha before Pesach (unless it is a leap year) and for good reason. There are many, many links between the seder and the Korban Toda, the איסור of eating blood and חֵלֶב, the avoda of the Kohen and the sprinkling of the blood.
Pesach is a unique opportunity for all of us. It is a time that we elevate ourselves to the level of the מלאכים. The שערי שמים are wide open to us, granting us whatever we desire in the remainder of the year.
בניסן נגאלו בניסן עתידין ליגאל (ראש השנה יא, ע"א)
It has been a tough year with the Corona. HKB”H has sent us back to the drawing board as it were, to re-evaluate everything we have always taken for granted, our parnasa, davening in shul, seeing other peoples’ smiles, our family unit and many more facets of our lives. B”H we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and we should all be optimistic that the גאולה is imminent. The gematria of the words "גימטריה של קורונה" is 974 which is the same as the gematria for “גאולה פסח תשפא”. We hope and pray that משיח will arrive this coming week בבי"א.
