The Ascent-Offering, continued
Leviticus 6:1-2
It remains valid...until morning: Conceptually, there are two objectives in placing an animal sacrifice on the Altar to burn: (a) the active objective of completing the process that began with its slaughtering, and (b) the preventative objective of not letting the deadline for its burning pass.
With regard to the first objective, the burning must occur during the same time frame as the slaughtering, in order to express the notion that it is the direct sequel to the slaughtering. Thus, since the animal must be slaughtered by day, it must also be placed on the Altar to burn by day. Once the day is over, this active objective can no longer be accomplished. Nonetheless, the sacrifice is still placed on the Altar-fire in order to accomplish the second objective—not to let it become disqualified from being placed on the Altar to burn, which happens only the following morning.
In our personal lives, burning an animal sacrifice on the Altar expresses how we dedicate ourselves, and particularly our pursuit of pleasure (signified by the fats placed on the Altar), to God. Offering up our pleasure on God’s Altar means transmuting self-oriented pleasure—deriving pleasure from something because of its benefits for us or for the sensual gratification it gives us—into the pleasure of doing things for God.
Just as there are active and preventative aspects of burning up the fats on the Altar, there are both active and preventative aspects in the process of refining our pursuit of pleasure. The active aspect is performed “by day” and the preventative aspect “by night.”
Metaphorically, “day” signifies those aspects of our lives that are open expressions of spiritual “light,” i.e., Divine consciousness: studying God’s Torah and fulfilling His commandments. “Night,” in contrast, signifies all other, mundane aspects of our lives, whose Divine dimension is obscured by the “darkness” of materiality. Thus, the twofold obligation to place the fats on the Altar-fire both during the day and the night indicate that we must transmute our self-oriented pleasure into God-centered pleasure both when involved in spiritual pursuits (studying the Torah and fulfilling the commandments) as well as when engaged in our mundane affairs.
Thus, the fact that the main obligation to burn sacrificial fat is by day indicates, surprisingly, that our main, active obligation to transmute our self-oriented pleasure into God-oriented pleasure is with respect to our spiritual pursuits (“day”), rather than with respect to our mundane pursuits (“night”)—despite the fact that we would intuitively assume the opposite. The reason for this seemingly inverted emphasis is because the fact that we must replace the self-oriented pleasure we experience in our mundane affairs with God-oriented pleasure is obvious; if we do not do so, indulging in mundane pursuits will only feed our own materialism.
With respect to spiritual pursuits, however, we can easily delude ourselves into thinking that as long as the commandment is being performed, there is nothing wrong with enjoying its attendant benefits. In fact, however, studying the Torah or fulfilling its commandments with self-oriented motives prevents us from fully experiencing the Divine dimension of the commandment we are performing. Worse yet, it can inflate our egos no less than can indulging in material pleasures for selfish reasons. Special care, therefore, must be taken to ensure that our motives remain pure.
True, if we are not yet spiritually mature enough to hold ourselves to this ideal, then “the performance of the deed is the main thing,” and “one should always occupy oneself with the Torah and its commandments, even when not for their own sake, since by [doing so] not for their own sake, one will come to [do so] for their own sake.”
Furthermore, once our motives have been purged of egocentricity, the Torah itself bids us to appreciate the benefits inherent in following its dictates, as we have already discussed at length.
On a deeper level, “day” and “night” are metaphors for times of spiritual “light” and “darkness,” i.e., inspiration and lethargy, respectively. During periods of “daylight,” when our Divine soul shines openly, transmuting self-oriented pleasure into God-oriented pleasure comes naturally, following smoothly—almost automatically—the overall subjugation of our human/animal nature (the “slaughtering of the sacrifices”) that we engage in while in this state. All the pleasure we experience during these times, whether in Divine pursuits—studying the Torah and fulfilling God’s commandments—or in mundane pursuits, is God-oriented, a fulfillment of King Solomon’s injunction to “know Him in all your ways.”
During periods of “night,” however, when we lose contact with our Divine soul, we must consciously ensure that we engage in both our spiritual and mundane affairs only for Divine purposes; in the words of the Mishnah, “Let all your deeds be for the sake of heaven.”
Despite the obvious superiority of “day”-consciousness over “night”-consciousness, it is by answering the challenge of nighttime, more than that of the day, that we usher in the light of morning, the light of redemption. This is because in order for us to direct our thoughts to God when we are uninspired, we must call upon our deeper currents of spiritual connection to Him. Revealing these otherwise-hidden spiritual potentials redeems us from our own “nights,” our personal “exiles,” thereby hastening the true and final, messianic Redemption.
All night: The fire on the Altar was kept burning throughout the night, indicating that it is possible to bring Divine light to even the darkest spiritual moments. Spiritually, the fire derived its ability to illuminate the night—thereby prevailing over the natural darkness of the night—from the Divine fire that descended upon the Altar during the preceding day to devour the sacrifices.
