Alternatively, it is possible to explain the analogies of day and night on a deeper plane, enabling us to understand why offering the fats during the day is a positive mitzvah, while offering them at night serves merely to preclude sin.
In addition to the interpretation mentioned above, day and night can be seen as analogies for a person’s spiritual state. Day refers to a time when one feels the G-dly light in his soul. This applies not only when he is involved in the observance of Torah and mitzvos, G-d’s will and His wisdom, but also when involved in material activities. Even in the worldly sphere, he serves G-d, following the dictum: “Know Him in all your ways.” To cite an example, when tzaddikim partake of food, their eating serves a higher purpose than humanity’s ordinary efforts at refinement; “A tzaddik eats for the satisfaction of his soul.”
Night, by contrast, refers to a condition in which a person does not feel G-dliness. Therefore his need to engage in material things generates a constant struggle to serve G-d rather than indulge his desires. Moreover, even when he is involved in studying Torah and observing its mitzvos, he must labor to remain properly motivated. For the law is enclothed in mortal intellect, and the mitzvos involve material entities and the potentials of our animal soul. And so it is necessary to strive that one study lishmah, only for the sake of the Torah. Similarly, our observance of the mitzvos must be for G-d’s sake, and not for our own.
The concept of burning the fats on the altar — dedicating our satisfaction to G-d — applies both day and night. But there is a difference. When a person’s Divine service is that of “day,” all the satisfaction he feels — not only that derived from observance of the Torah and its mitzvos, but also that which comes from worldly things — is an expression of holiness, “know[ing] G-d in all His ways.”
In contrast, those whose Divine service are on the plane of night, and whose perception is obscured by their animal souls, cannot transform all the pleasure they feel into an expression of G-dliness. Instead, their Divine service concentrates on breaking their nature, not indulging in superfluous pleasures and desires. They endeavor never to engage in a material activity for the sake of that activity itself; instead, they seek that their intent be “for the sake of heaven.” Thus their “burning of the fats” is of a preventive nature, holding back from indulgence in permitted matters, because for them indulgence in permitted matters all too often leads to indulgence in forbidden matters.
Similarly, with regard to the study of the Torah, since they cannot summon up a genuine commitment to study lishmah, they must struggle to prevent themselves from relying on their mortal reasoning and instead seek out the true intent of the Law. For mortal reason can lead a person to distort the Torah’s intent. Thus here as well — and similarly with regard to the observance of mitzvos — one’s efforts are aimed at avoiding negative consequences.
