C. Complementary Forces
The Contradictory Properties of Salt
The sources quoted above list a number of salt’s fundamental properties, both positive and negative:
On one hand, salt is destructive and prevents growth; on the other hand, salt enhances flavor, lasts forever, preserves other foods, and strengthens both human and animal skin. By considering each of these qualities, we have suggested a number of possible explanations why God commanded us to add salt to sacrifices. Each of these explanations relates to one of the fundamental properties of salt described in the Bible.
Contradictory Properties
Interestingly, these properties are not only varied – they are actually contradictory: destruction and preservation. This coexistence of positive and negative properties might be why salt, specifically, is added to sacrifices.
Opposing Forces within the Covenant
Ramban explains:
...For salt is [derived from] water, and through the power of the sun that shines upon [the water] it becomes salt. And water, by nature, soaks the earth and brings forth birth and growth, and once it becomes salt it destroys every place and burns it, so that “it is not sown, nor can it grow.” And the covenant includes both of these attributes...just as salt gives flavor to all foods and preserves them, and [yet also] destroys with its saltiness... And therefore, He said regarding the sacrifices: “It is an eternal covenant of salt” (Num. 18:19), for the covenant is the salt of the world, by which it is preserved and destroyed... (Ramban on Lev. 2:13)
According to Ramban, salt has two contradictory properties: the ability to destroy and the ability to preserve. In this way, salt resembles the covenant between man and God. The covenant preserves the people so long as they adhere to its terms, but it can also destroy the nation if they violate it.
In this sense, the covenant is the spiritual equivalent of salt. Covenants were traditionally sealed with salt due to the conceptual similarity between the two. Similarly, sacrifices are required to include salt since they represent the vital covenant between God and the nation – a covenant that preserves the world’s existence, but also has the power to destroy it.
Justice and Mercy
Rabbenu Bahya comments (on Lev. 2:3) on Ramban’s explanation:
And in a Kabbalistic sense, there are two opposing forces in salt, each the opposite of the other. These are fire and water, which are parallel to the two forces that sustain the world, the Attribute of Mercy and the Attribute of Justice. And for this reason, He said: “The salt of the covenant of your God,” and referred to the covenant of God as “salt,” for by [salt] the world is preserved and destroyed. And as [the Sages] said: He saw that [the world] could not exist [based] on justice [only], and so he combined it with the Attribute of Mercy. So too, salt preserves and destroys, for it preserves meat for a long period of time and gives flavor to food, [but] it is destructive as well, for a place that has been salted will never grow any grass...
Salt, Covenant and Sacrifice – Combining Justice and Mercy
Rabbenu Bahya highlights the fundamental issue at hand: the integration of two opposing forces, God’s Attribute of Justice and His Attribute of Mercy. The world continues to exist by merit of the balance struck between these two forces. Salt also represents the integration of two contradictory forces: existence and destruction.
Bringing a sacrifice is another expression of this integration of justice and mercy. On one hand, if a person sins, he must atone for his transgression and may even be deserving of death; only the sacrifice atones for his sin, acting as a “ransom” for his soul. On the other hand, God’s mercy allows for the possibility of atoning for one’s sins, allowing humanity to continue to exist. How are these two opposing forces reconciled?
Salt – Preventing Organic Processes
Salt seems to be an agent that prevents organic processes from occurring. Organic materials naturally undergo change: it spoils and rots. On one hand, salt preserves these materials by preventing them from spoiling. On the other hand, the decomposition of organic material is what leads to new growth. A seed must rot in order to allow the plant to sprout. Fruit that falls in the field decomposes and is absorbed by the ground, acting as fertilizer and preparing the ground for new growth.
By preventing decomposition and change, salt also halts the process of growth.
The Connection between Destruction and Preservation
Just as growth is necessarily based on a process of decomposition, the destructive properties of salt are closely linked to its ability to preserve. Salt symbolizes the idea that preservation and destruction, which may appear to be polar opposites, actually originate from the same source.
Human life encompasses these two extremes as well: while the body lives, it contains the everlasting soul, yet it is eventually destroyed. The human body is a vessel that allows one to exist in the physical world. Due to its physical nature, the body is subject to changes that allow for growth, and yet these same changes also lead to aging, illness, death and decomposition.
The Attribute of Mercy, which corresponds to preservation, and the Attribute of Justice, which corresponds to destruction, are two manifestations of God’s sovereignty in the world. Although they manifest as opposing forces, they both derive from Him.
Crowning God through the Sacrifices
The sacrifices, then, are not only a source of atonement for one’s sins. Bringing a sacrifice recalls these two extremes and the link between them.
Bringing salt with the sacrifice symbolizes the disruption of natural, organic processes and the end of physical life (slaughtering the animal for the sacrifice represents this as well). At the same time, it reminds us of the concurrent preservation of the eternal – the continued existence of the soul, which is pardoned in the wake of the sacrifice.
Salt – Opposing Forces from the Divine Source
Salt must be added to all sacrifices in order to emphasize that everything that happens in the world is rooted in the same Source, although some things might seem to be influenced by opposing forces. The sacrifice is a confirmation of God’s status as ruler of the entire world and all of the contradictory elements within it.
The Kli Yakar expresses this idea as follows:
...In order to crown the Holy One, Blessed be He, over all of the opposing [forces] that exist in the world... And behold, salt contains within it two opposing forces, for it has the power of fire and heat, and it is derived from water. And the Sages of the Kabbalah said that these are parallel to the Attribute of Justice and the Attribute of Mercy, and therefore it is called “the covenant of your God,” for in bringing it with the sacrifice a covenant is made with God to crown Him over all of the opposites... (Kli Yakar on Lev. 2:13)
According to this interpretation, bringing a sacrifice is an act of acknowledging God’s sovereignty in the world – recognizing that He controls everything, and that nothing is outside of His sphere of influence. Even things that seem like separate, contradictory powers are controlled by God: fire and water, good and evil, justice and mercy. Salt, with its contradictory properties of destruction and preservation, represents the deep, existential connection between the Attribute of Justice and that of Mercy and symbolizes God’s control over every force in the world.
