Rabeinu Bachayei

This is the law for the burnt-offering, the meal-offering, the sin-offering, the guilt-offering, the consecration offerings and the peace-offerings. (VaYikra 7,37)

You will note that the order in which the categories of offerings are listed in this verse corresponds to the order in which they appear in the respective paragraphs in the Torah. The Torah commences in Vayikra with the rules of the burnt-offering, which are followed by the rules for the meal-offering, and so on.

Our verse here mentioned the burnt-offering first, concluding with the peace-offerings. The reason that the burnt-offering deserves to be mentioned first is that it is the choicest of the offerings. The reason why the peace-offering deserves to be the one with which the Torah concludes the list is that as indicated by its very name it brings about peace in the world which ensures the continued existence of the universe.

Our sages (the men of the Great Assembly) who are responsible for finalizing the wording of our liturgy have made the blessing of peace the final benediction in the central prayer Shemoneh Esrei, as without this blessing all the other blessings are ultimately worthless seeing that they will not endure. Solomon similarly concluded his Song of Songs (8, 10) with the words: so I became in his eyes like someone who finds an abundance of peace.

Our sages (Menachos 110) state that peace is a blessing which is indispensable even in the celestial regions. They base this insight on Job 25, 2: Dominion and strength are His, He imposes peace in His heights. On the words of our verse: this is the law of the burnt-offering, etc., our sages in Menachos 110 say that anyone who studies the laws of these offerings is considered as if he had personally offered them on the Altar. What the sages mean is that once one has familiarized himself with the deeper meaning of each type of offering, it enables the student of these laws to gain new insights which in turn will strengthen his resolve to meticulously observe all the precepts of the Torah. Seeing that offering the sacrifices is also meant to bring us closer to G’d, it is no more than reasonable that studying these laws will have a similar effect. Such study and new resolve to observe the Torah will result in the sins of such people being forgiven, similar to their having performed the actual procedure of offering the relevant sacrifices. It is certainly unreasonable to suppose that the sages meant that the mere mouthing of the words of the oral Torah listing the detailed laws of the sacrificial rites would have such an elevating effect.

There is a somewhat similar statement by the sages in Berachos 4 concerning people who recite Psalm 145 every day qualifying for a place in the hereafter. They certainly did not mean to imply that all that is necessary to ensure for one his place in the hereafter is a mindless recital of the words in that Psalm. What the sages meant was that by reflecting on the words in this Psalm and by understanding the allusions contained in them, the reader (student) will emerge with a newly strengthened belief in G’d and His loving care for mankind. This will trigger his serving G’d with greater intensity than before he had studied this Psalm. This in turn will result in that person earning or retaining his share in the world to come.

It is because of such reasoning that the men of the Great Assembly have included in our daily prayers such sections as the fifth chapter of Zevachim and they added that G’d said that when this chapter is being recited I will account it for you as if you had offered the sacrifices listed therein (all of them).

and an earthenware vessel which it has been cooked in must be broken. This means that the boiling of the meat must also take place in the sacred precincts, just as the washing had to take place in sacred precinct (Vayikra 6,21)

Our sages (Yuma 21) explained that the shards of such earthenware vessels which had become defiled became miraculously absorbed by the floor of the Azarah, the courtyard of the Tabernacle/Temple. Had this miracle not occurred the floor would have become so filled with these shards as to make walking there impossible. This was also one of the eighteen miracles which we mentioned earlier as occurring regularly in connection with the Temple.

Here is a list of all these eighteen miracles:

1. no pregnant woman ever lost her fetus prematurely on account of the smell of the sacrificial meat being burned up.
2. This sacrificial meat never exuded an unpleasant odor.
3. The High Priest was never incapacitated on Yom Kippur due to involuntary emission of semen.
4. There never was found a fly in the area designated for slaughtering and dressing the animals.
5. No blemish which would disqualify the offering of the first two loaves of the new barley harvest (Omer) or the first two loaves of the new wheat harvest (Shtey Halechem) ever occurred. The same applied to the show-breads offering presented in the Temple every Sabbath. These three offerings were considered as one in the count of the miracles which occurred.
6. The rains never extinguished the flames on the woodpile of the Altar (which had no roofing).
7. Even the strongest wind would never deflect the column of smoke rising from the offerings being burned. The reference is, of course, to the fire contributed by man, not to that which descended from heaven. The Priests were commanded to contribute their own fire in Leviticus 1,7. Although fire descended from heaven, it was a positive commandment for the Priests to contribute fire of their own (Sifra Vayikra 4 [5,10].The reason for this was that the heavenly fire did not leave behind a trail of smoke, as pointed out in Yuma 21, where five peculiarities of the heavenly fire on the wooodpile of the Altar are listed. This fire is described as: crouching like a lion, disappearing like the sun, its flame being tangible, consuming the wet and the dry alike, not producing smoke. Rabbi Chaninah there claimed that when he saw this fire it was not crouching like a lion but like a dog. The Talmud answers this by saying that the fire which descended from heaven during the first Temple crouched like lion; the fire which descended during the second Temple crouched like a dog.
8. Although people stood very close together so that they had to touch one another (during the festivals), when the ritual called for them to prostrate themselves on the ground, they miraculously found adequate room for this.
9. No scorpion or snake ever bit anybody within Jerusalem.
10. No one was ever heard to complain that there were no lodgings in Jerusalem so that he had to spend the night outside the city.

The foregoing are the ten miracles listed in the fifth chapter of Pirke Avot. The remaining eight miracles were as follows:

1. the shards of earthenware vessels which served as pots to boil the remains of the sin-offerings and which had to be burned or destroyed as the tiny fraction absorbed by the walls became notar, leftover, and as such forbidden, were absorbed by the floor of the courtyard of the Temple.
2. The Altar for the burnt-offering (the one in the courtyard) which had a woodpile on it which was kept aflame and which stood on a thin copper overlay, never melted the copper nor damaged the wooden beams underneath it. (Tanchuma Terumah 11).
3. All seven lights of the candlestick in the Sanctuary were constantly at the same level of oil, none burning faster or slower than its counterpart. None of them ever went out before dawn (Shabbat 22). During the long winter nights there was never insufficient oil, nor was there an excess of oil during the short summer nights. The light in the central shaft had the same amount of oil as those on either side of it. It would be the first one to be lit in the evenings and the last one to be cleaned in the morning.
4. A tongue of red colored wool would be hung at the entrance of the Sanctuary at the beginning of Yom Kippur; this would turn white by evening of the day (Yuma 67).
5. The scapegoat which was thrown off a cliff would break up in innumerable pieces before it ever hit the bottom of the valley into which it was thrown. Not a single of its limbs would remain intact by that time.
6. Concerning the Menorah procedure, I have seen the following comment in Tanchuma Tetzaveh 3: When the lights of the Menorah in the Sanctuary were kindled in the evening, every courtyard in Jerusalem made use of the illumination provided by it. This is the mystical dimension of Exodus 27,20: they shall take for you pure olive oil, pressed, to provide illumination.
7. As soon as Solomon had built the Temple, he planted in it all kinds of confections made of gold which would produce fruit at the appropriate seasons. This is what we have been told in Yuma 21.
8. Another miracle related there is that the show-breads which were placed on the Table in the Temple every Sabbath retained their warmth at the same level as when they had come from the oven for the entire week. This is based on Samuel I 21,7 le'sum lechem cham beyom hilakcho, to place bread which was still hot on the day it was shared out (8 days after it had been baked). Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that a great miracle occurred with the show-breads, i.e. that it was as hot and fresh when it was removed from the Sanctuary as when it was introduced there. He quotes the verse from Samuel in support of this.

The question is raised there: were there then no other miracles? Did not Levi say that the place where the Holy Ark stood did not consume terrestrial space, and Samuel (the Amora) said that the cherubs stood by means of a miracle!

The answer given is that only miracles which were visible to the people, i.e. the ones which were manifest outside the actual Sanctuary were included in the count. This does not mean that there were no additional miracles inside the Sanctuary.