An attempt to appreciate the pnimiyus of what it is all about by following the principle of what Dovid Hamelech taught us is the purpose of all the appurtenances of the Mikdash.
And so we’ll say the following. When you take a sheep or some other beheima as a korban, and you slaughter it and put it down on the Mizbeyach, lefi hapashtus k’bipshuto, the most simple meaning is that you’re offering yourself up on the Mizbeyach.
What do I mean ‘yourself’? Exactly that! It’s a vicarious offering of yourself. Because it’s not enough that we feel indebted to Hakadosh Baruch Hu for life itself, for bechira and seichel and all the opportunities that life gives us, but we have to thank Hashem for our body too. To live like a person with the great organization called the body requires a certain amount of gratitude.
Self-Oblation
And so a korban means that you’re taking yourself and you’re giving yourself back to Hakadosh Baruch Hu in gratitude. After all, He gave you a body, a body so wonderful, and you had it for so long already. If you’re twenty years old, twenty years is a very long time. If you’ve been using this gift for fifty years or sixty years, even more so. And so why shouldn’t we give ourselves back to Him in gratitude? Wouldn’t that be the best, most sincere expression of thanksgiving?
And so what do you do? You bring a lamb. A poor little lamb is a live creature and his heart is pumping the blood throughout his body and wants to live. And you cut its neck and the blood that was keeping it alive comes pouring out. And you take from the blood and you put it on the Mizbeyach and you’re thinking, “That is me; this is instead of me. Baruch Hashem that I’m not on the Mizbeyach. Baruch Hashem that Hashem didn’t demand of me such a sacrifice. Baruch Hashem, He gives me my body every day and He lets me keep it.”
We keep our cheilev, fats, in ourselves. We keep our klayos, our kidneys, for ourselves. Our heads and legs and stomach, everything we keep and we use them every day. Instead we offer up on the Mizbeyach an olah — we burn the whole body to Hashem. And when it goes up to Hashem, it’s like we’re going up to Hashem in gratitude. The korbanos are an expression of the highest gratitude to Hashem for our bodies.
Breaking it Down
But not just the body as one whole; all the parts of the body. יַ ֹ̇מו¿ˆַﬠ לָּכָךֹמוָכ יƒמ 'ה הָנ¿רַמ‡ֹּ ̇ – Every part of my body speaks up and says, “Hashem who is like You?” Every function of the body, every organ is nissei nissim. If you would study the kidney, the kidney is one of the most wonderful machines in the world. The heart? We’re amazed by the creation of such a pump that day and night it pumps without stop, so many tens of years. Every detail of the body, nissei nissim.
Only that if you don’t think about, it’s a general term, the body, and we lump it all together and patur ourselves; and we absolve ourselves from thinking about it. And so along comes the korban and it says that you have to separate all the limbs, all the organs, and be makriv them on the Mizbeyach separately. That’s the mitzvah of hefshet v’nituach; we skin and separate the limbs so they should more closely resemble the human limbs. Because הָנ¿רַמ‡ֹּ ̇ יַ ֹ̇מו¿ˆַﬠ לָּכ – every part is speaking! Every detail of the body is so wondrous that you can spend your entire life talking about it and you don’t even begin to explain even part of the miracles of the body.
The Altar of Thanksgiving
And so what is the Mizbeyach for? It means one thing. It means “Thank You Hashem! Baruch Hashem You give me my life every day and all the organs are functioning perfectly more or less.”
And so we see that like the Shulchan and like the Menorah, the Mizbeyach is also intended as a symbol of thanksgiving. And that’s one of the purposes of reading these parshiyos; so that we should utilize this principle that the Mishkan and the Mikdash are a place of יƒּכ הָך¿מƒמֹרוֲ‡ יƒנַ ̇יƒּלƒּ„, of raising up Hashem with our gratitude.
