Parashat HaTamid

Why Shacharit has a deadline

The Gemara (the rabbis' discussions built on the Mishnah) gives two views on where the daily prayers come from. One says Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov started them. The other says they were set up to match the daily offerings in this passage. In the end the Gemara keeps both: the fathers began the prayers, and the rabbis tied them to the offerings. So the morning prayer can be said only until the hour the morning lamb could be brought. Mincha runs until evening, like the afternoon lamb.

The extra verse about the north

The passage ends with a verse from another book, Vayikra: the offering is slaughtered on the north side of the altar. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says to add it. A Midrash (early rabbinic teachings on the Torah) explains: when anyone reads these words, Jew or non-Jew, man or woman, God remembers the binding of Yitzchak. You read that story a few pages ago. The Gemara adds that the daily lamb was tied foreleg to hind leg, "like the binding of Yitzchak son of Avraham."

Lambs over the wall

The Gemara tells of a civil war between two Hasmonean kings, from the family of the Chanukah story. One was inside Jerusalem and the other had it surrounded. Each day those inside lowered coins in a basket, and those outside sent up lambs for the offering. An old man told the attackers: as long as they are busy with the service, they will not fall into your hands. The next day a pig came up. Separately, the Mishnah (the core text of the Oral Torah) lists the date the daily offering stopped: the 17th of Tammuz.

A drink from a golden cup

The Mishnah describes the morning in the Temple. The officer in charge said: go and see if the time has come. If it had, the lookout answered with one word, barkai: it is shining. The lamb had been inspected the evening before. It was inspected again by torchlight, and it was given a drink from a golden cup. The morning lamb was then slaughtered at the northwest corner, by the second ring. That is the "north side" in the last verse you say here.

Moshe asked first

Just before this passage in the Torah, God tells Moshe he will soon die. Moshe asks Him to appoint a leader for the people, and God names Yehoshua. Then comes this passage. Rashi (the classic Torah commentator, France, died 1105) explains the link with a parable. A dying mother asks her husband to look after their children. He answers: before you instruct me about the children, instruct the children about me. So God says to Moshe: before you command Me about My children, command My children about Me.

Nobody went to bed with a sin

The first request asks that the daily offering "atone for us." A Midrash says how. Rabbi Yehudah bar Rabbi Simon taught that nobody ever spent a night in Jerusalem with a sin still on him. The morning lamb atoned for what was done at night, and the afternoon lamb for what was done by day. The same Midrash plays on kevasim, the word for lambs. The school of Hillel (a leading group of early rabbis) read it like the word for washing clothes: the lambs wash away Israel's sins.

When did this get into the siddur?

The words are the Torah's. Saying them every morning came later. The Rambam (Maimonides, who died in 1204) writes that after the Torah blessings a person reads a little Torah. The custom, he says, was the priestly blessing. Some places read this passage, some both. The Tur (a code of Jewish law, 1300s) calls the reading fixed and notes that the siddur of Rav Amram (Babylonia, 800s) already has it. His reason is the one in the Kiyor passage: with no Temple, God counts reading the offerings as if they were brought.

The verse that beat the Shema

Which verse takes in the most of the Torah? The Maharal (Rabbi Yehudah Loew of Prague, who died in 1609) quotes a midrash from the introduction to the Ein Yaakov (a 1500s collection of the Gemara's stories). Ben Zoma: "Shema Yisrael." Ben Nanas: "Love your fellow as yourself." Shimon ben Pazi: "Offer the one lamb in the morning." A rabbi stands up and rules like Ben Pazi. Why? The Maharal: this is the offering brought every day, and a servant does not serve now and then. He serves all the time. The rest of the Torah explains how.

ומה שאמר בן פזי את הכבש האחד תעשה בבקר הוא כלל גדול בתורה יותר, רצה לומר מה שהאדם עובד הש"י בתמידות הגמור והוא עבדו

A slow leak needs a steady fix

One word for the offering in this passage is olat. Rearranged, its letters spell tola, a worm. Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) builds on that old wordplay. A worm eats slowly and ruins a thing bit by bit. That, he says, is how the strength inside a person gets worn away: a little at a time, all the time. So the fix has to be steady too. Since the Temple fell, he writes, holy light breaks through only now and then. What keeps you from falling is the kind that never stops. The daily offering brought that.

אף אם בעת רצון לפעמים אור קדוש מופיע מתוך מחבואו, הרי זהו רק מזמן לזמן, אבל המשך הקדושה התמידית שרק היא הנה הערובה לבלי הכשל

Every word is a piece of you

With no lamb, what are you offering? Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (who died in 1821, the leading student of the Vilna Gaon) answers in his book Nefesh HaChaim. In the Temple, the point of an offering was to lift the animal's life upward. Prayer stands in its place, so the point of prayer is to lift your own life upward and hand it over. How? By speaking. Speech is what a person has that an animal does not, he writes, so every word that leaves your mouth is a part of your soul. Now read the last request again, the one about "what we have just said."

כן עיקר ענין התפלה הוא. להעלות ולמסור ולדבק נפשו למעלה... כל תיבה היוצאת מפי האדם היא כח וחלק מנפשו

Avraham's morning, Yitzchak's evening

Offer one lamb "in the morning." Which morning? The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) answers: Avraham's morning, as it says, "Avraham got up early in the morning." The Torah says that about Avraham more than once. One of the times is in the Akedah, which you read a few pages back. The afternoon lamb, the Zohar goes on, is Yitzchak's: "Yitzchak went out to meditate in the field toward evening." So each lamb was brought at the hour that belonged to one of the fathers. Elsewhere the Zohar adds that these two hours are the times for prayer.

מַאי בַבֹּקֶר. דָּא בֹּקֶר דְּאַבְרָהָם... וְלָקֳבֵל בֹּקֶר דְּאַבְרָהָם, אִתְקְרִיב קָרְבְּנָא דָּא. קָרְבָּן דְּבֵין הָעַרְבַּיִם, דָּא יִצְחָק

What an offering is for

Korban, the Hebrew word for an offering, comes from the word for "near." The Sefat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, a Chassidic leader who died in 1905) says an offering brings things near to their root, by making clear that they come from God. The daily prayers, he says, do the same. We ask God for everything, small and large, and say a blessing over each thing, to make clear that all of it is from Him. That, he writes, is how everything is brought near and attached to its root. Try it on the next small thing you ask for.

פי' הקרבן מה שמקרבים כל הדברים לשורשן לברר שהם מהשי"ת וזהו תפלות נגד תמידין ג"כ שמבקשין מהשי"ת. על כל קטן וגדול

Is this the one Temple passage I should not skip?

It ranks above the rest. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) calls the other offering passages "good to say." Of this one, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the code by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe) writes that all Israel "set it as an obligation on themselves" to read it every day before prayer. Peninei Halakhah (a modern guide to Jewish law by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed) adds a caution: the Sages never decreed it, so it is not a full obligation. It is a custom that became fixed as one.

I am running late. What do I cut to fit this in?

Peninei Halakhah gives an order. To make time for this passage and the incense verses, first skip Tehillim 30 (Mizmor Shir Chanukat HaBayit). Still short? Skip Hodu. He writes that it is right to skip even Vayevarech David, the Song at the Sea and Yehi Chevod for this. But not Baruch She'amar, Ashrei through the last Halleluyah psalm, or Yishtabach. Those are the core of the morning psalms. They were set as an obligation, with blessings of their own. No blessing was ever set for saying this passage.

Do I stand for this one?

The note above this passage quotes the view that you stand. The Kiyor passage lays out that dispute. The Pri Megadim (Rabbi Yosef Teomim, 1700s) brings the argument that there is no need to stand, then adds: still, for the daily offering it is fitting to stand, since the congregation reads it aloud. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, from around 1900) quotes him. Sha'arei Teshuvah (a digest printed with the Shulchan Aruch) quotes the other side: no need even here.

I said it at home. Do I say it again in shul?

You can. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to the Shulchan Aruch) deals with a shul that says only this passage together. Say it all at home, then read this passage again with them. The Mishnah Berurah explains: they all said it aloud, so you could not sit there silent. The second time, think of it as reading Torah, so it does not look like bringing two daily offerings. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav adds: at home means once it is light. Sha'arei Teshuvah: the repeat is not an obligation.

Does it have to be said with a minyan?

The sources disagree. Ba'er Hetev (an earlier digest printed with the Shulchan Aruch) quotes the book Derekh Chokhmah: take care to say it with the congregation and prayer leader, because the daily offering was a public offering. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary, early 1900s) records that view too. Sha'arei Teshuvah objects: the public did not stand there when it was brought, only the Temple watch. Someone praying alone need not say it with a congregation. The Mishnah Berurah points to that objection.

What changes on Shabbat?

Two things, and customs differ on both. The note above the opening request says some do not say it on Shabbat and Yom Tov. The Sefard prayer book for Rosh Hashanah has the same note. Second, the Shulchan Aruch rules that on Shabbat the verses of the extra Shabbat offering are added next to this passage. That prayer book prints them further on. But the Kaf HaChaim reports that the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the Kabbalist of Tzfat) did not say them, and quotes that in the Land of Israel they are not said.

"As if we offered." Why not "as if I offered"?

The Pri Megadim notes: siddurim print "as if we offered the daily offering," and some print "as if I offered," which he calls the bigger mistake. A sin offering has an owner. The daily offering belongs to no individual. He calls the wording of the Tur (a law code from the 1300s) correct: "as if the daily offering was brought." Sha'arei Teshuvah defends the siddurim: the daily offerings were bought from the Temple fund, so every Jew has a share, and the kohen (priest) is our agent. The Mishnah Berurah cites both.