Eizehu Mekoman, part 2

The boys who came home late

Two groups of offerings here are eaten "for a day and a night, until midnight." Part 1 gave the reason: the real deadline is dawn, and the Sages said midnight "to keep a person far from sin." In the Mishnah (the first written collection of the oral law) that rule comes with a story. Rabban Gamliel's sons came home from a feast and had not said the evening Shema. He told them: if dawn has not come, you still have to. Then the rule: wherever the Sages said "until midnight," the mitzvah lasts until dawn.

Four times "only"

The chapter ends with the Pesach offering, and its rules sound different. Four limits in a row, each starting with "only": only at night, only until midnight, only by the people signed up for that animal, only roasted. Night, signing up and roasting are all in Shemot 12. On signing up, the Torah says to count the group by how much each person will eat. On roasting, Sefer HaChinukh (a 1200s book that explains the 613 commandments) says roast meat is how royalty eats, and on that night we eat like free people.

Every tenth animal

The "tithe" on this list is a tithe of animals. The Torah says every tenth animal that passes under the rod is holy. The Mishnah describes how it was done. Put the animals in a pen. Make an opening so narrow that two cannot leave together. Count them with a rod as they come out. The tenth gets a mark of red paint and the words "this one is the tithe." You could not just pick ten good ones out of a hundred. According to the first opinion in the Mishnah, that does not count.

The nazir is on both lists

A nazir is a man or woman who vows, for a set time, not to drink wine, cut their hair or go near a dead body. This half of the chapter names the nazir twice. If someone dies suddenly beside a nazir, the days already counted are lost, the count starts over, and the nazir brings a guilt offering. That is "the guilt offering of a nazir." A nazir who finishes brings a ram as a peace offering. That is "the nazir's ram," and the Mishnah puts it next to the thanksgiving offering, with the same one-day limit.

Two lambs a year

"The community's peace offerings" sounds like a big category. It is two lambs a year, brought on Shavuot with the two loaves of bread. The Rambam (Maimonides, who died in 1204) writes that everything else the community brings is a burnt offering or a sin offering. These two lambs are its only peace offerings. He adds one more fact that explains the rest of the list: the community never brings a guilt offering. All six guilt offerings named here belong to individuals.

Where doubt comes from

The last guilt offering on the list is for a person who is not sure whether they sinned at all. Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) asks where doubt comes from. When a person is in touch with what is holy inside them, he writes, certainty shines. Then real life pulls them down into getting things done, in a group, with other people. That is where the doubts arrive, and they "sometimes move him off the straight line." The offering ties a person back to the place where the shadows of doubt lift.

הספקות באים עליו ומעבירים אותו לפעמים על השורה הישרה. ובא התקון לחזור ולקשרו ביסוד הקדושה העליונה, ששם הצללים של הספקות סרים, ושמשה של הודאיות תוכל לזרח עליו

In the north, or out in the open

The most holy offerings are slaughtered in the north. Offerings of lesser holiness: anywhere in the courtyard. The Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Chassidut, who died in 1760) heard a second meaning, written down by his student Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonne. It seems to lean on the wordplay you met at the Tamid passage: tzafon, north, is spelled like the word for hidden. For most people, the pull to do wrong is out in the open. For a Torah scholar it is covered. It comes looking like the good impulse, telling him to do a mitzvah.

שהיצר הרע בא אל הת"ח בדמות יצר הטוב לעשות מצוה, מה שאין כן להמוני עם

The one offering that never stops

A midrash (an early rabbinic teaching) says that in the future all the offerings will come to an end except one: the thanksgiving offering. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (a Chassidic master who died in 1810) explains why that one stays. The main joy of the World to Come, he says, is to thank and praise God and to know Him. The more a person knows and recognizes Him, the closer they are. Everything else will fall away, and only thanks will be left. Now read the line "as if I brought a thanksgiving offering" again.

שֶׁלֹּא יִשָּׁאֵר לֶעָתִיד, רַק בְּחִינַת תּוֹדָה וְהוֹדָאָה, לְהוֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵּל וְלָדַעַת אוֹתוֹ יִתְבָּרַךְ

Why the owners eat too

This chapter keeps saying who eats each offering. The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) explains the difference. Sin and guilt offerings are eaten by the kohanim (priests), because they are the ones who atone for the people who brought them. Peace offerings are called shelamim, it says, because they are the peace of everything, above and below. So the owners eat from them and enjoy them too: "it is peace for him and for the whole world." No offering is as loved by God as this one, it says. It then puts the incense above them all.

בְּעָלִים אָכְלִין מִנַּיְיהוּ, וּמִתְהַנְיָין מִנַּיְיהוּ. דְּהָא שְׁלָמָא הוּא לֵיהּ, וּלְכָל עָלְמָא, בְּדַרְגָּא חֲדָא... וּמִכָּל קָרְבָּנִי לָא חֲבִיבִין קָמֵי קוּדְשָׁא בְּרִיךְ הוּא כְּמוֹ שְׁלָמִים

Why only roasted?

The chapter ends with four limits on the Pesach offering. The last one: it is eaten only roasted. The Maharal (Rabbi Yehudah Loew of Prague, who died in 1609) says every law of this offering points to one idea, oneness. It is brought to the One God by the one nation He chose. So it is not divided up: head, legs and insides stay together, and it is eaten in one house. And why not boiled? Meat cooked in water comes apart into pieces, he writes. Fire does the opposite. It draws the liquid out, and the meat becomes firm and one.

אבל צלי אש, מכח האש, אדרבה, נעשה הבשר אחד, כי האש מוציא הרוטב, ונעשה הבשר קשה ואחד

Why does one line say "if I owed" and the next two do not?

The notes on those lines give the reason: some offerings can be a gift, and a guilt offering is only for someone who owes one. The first Chabad Rebbe's code of law adds what goes wrong without the "if": saying the plain request when you owe nothing is like bringing an ordinary animal into the Temple. With the "if," someone who owes nothing has just read Torah. He is writing about the Torah passages on the offerings. The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code from around 1900) reports the request said in this chapter too.

Do I say the three "may it be" lines on Shabbat?

No. Part 1 of this chapter has the ruling in full. In short: the Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, from around 1900) says to leave the "may it be" request out on Shabbat and Yom Tov, when no gift offering was brought, and the first Chabad Rebbe's code of law rules the same. Both are speaking of the Torah passages on the offerings, which can still be said, like reading the Torah. The Shabbat edition of Siddur Sefard prints these four mishnayot with no request between them.

Are there days when only the thanksgiving line is skipped?

Yes. The Aruch HaShulchan writes that on the day before Pesach and all through Pesach, the thanksgiving psalm (Tehillim 100) is not said, and in the thanksgiving mishnah of this chapter you do not say "as if I brought a thanksgiving offering." The reason: the offering came with chametz (leavened bread). The Mishnah Berurah spells it out: ten loaves. The Magen Avraham (a 1600s commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, the main code of Jewish law) adds the day before Yom Kippur for the Torah passage of this offering.

No one can bring a thanksgiving offering now. What is done instead?

A blessing. The Shulchan Aruch lists four people who must give thanks: one who crossed the sea, one who crossed a desert, one who recovered from illness, and one let out of prison. They say the HaGomel blessing. The Rosh (Rabbeinu Asher, about 700 years ago) writes that it was set up in place of the thanksgiving offering. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short guide to Jewish law from the 1860s) adds: a person saved by a miracle gives charity and says, "May it count as if I brought a thanksgiving offering."

Is this why people rush to eat the afikoman at the Seder?

Yes. The Shulchan Aruch rules that the afikoman (the last matzah of the Seder) recalls the Pesach offering, and that you should be careful to eat it before midnight. The Mishnah Berurah explains: it must be eaten in that offering's time, "and the Pesach is eaten only until midnight," as this chapter ends. He adds that the first matzah of the night, if delayed past midnight, is eaten without its blessing, since earlier authorities are unsure it still counts. Midnight means the exact middle of the night.

Why do some families serve no roast meat at the Seder?

Because the Pesach offering was eaten only roasted, as this chapter's last words say. The Shulchan Aruch rules: where the custom is to eat roast meat on Seder night, people eat it. Where the custom is not to, they do not, so that no one says, "This is Pesach offering meat." In those places even roast veal or chicken is out. Everywhere, a whole roasted lamb is forbidden that night. The Mishnah Berurah writes that in his lands the custom was no roast on either Seder night, even meat roasted in a pot with no liquid.

Does anything in the last mishnah still apply with no Temple?

The firstborn does. The Shulchan Aruch rules that the firstborn male of a kosher animal is holy from birth even with no Temple, in the Land of Israel and outside it. Its wool and its work are off limits. So today, he writes, it is a mitzvah to make a non-Jew part owner of the mother before the birth. Then the newborn is never holy. The animal tithe is different. The Rambam (Maimonides) writes that the Sages forbade separating it in our time, so no one would end up slaughtering a holy animal outside the Temple.