“Salt of the Covenant of Your God”
What is the significance of salt?
Why must all sacrifices be salted?
A. The Commandment to Salt the Sacrifices
Three Commandments regarding Salting
Parashat Vayikra begins with the laws of sacrifices. Chapter one discusses animal sacrifices, while chapter two deals with grain and fruit offerings. Towards the end of chapter two, two commandments are listed: the prohibition against bringing leaven and honey as an offering (Lev. 2:11-12) and the obligation to salt the sacrifices (2:13). The commandment to salt the sacrifices consists of three parts:
וְכָל קָרְ בַּן מִנְחָתְךָ בַּמֶּלַּח תִּמְלָח, וְלֹא תַּשְבִּית מֶּלַּח בְרִּ ית א -לֹהֵיךָ מֵעַּל מִנְחָתֶךָ , עַּל כָל קָרְ בָנְךָ תַּקְרִּ יב מֶּלַּח.
And every sacrifice of meal-offering of yours you shall season with salt, and you shall not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your meal-offering; on all of your sacrifices you shall offer salt. (Lev. 2:13)
First, the Torah states a positive commandment to salt the offerings, and then it adds a negative precept warning the nation not to disobey this commandment. Finally, an additional commandment extends the obligation to salting all sacrifices, not only grain offerings.
Why does the Torah command us to salt sacrifices?
A Contrast to Idolatry
Following his usual line of reasoning, Rambam explains that salting creates a distinction between the act of bringing sacrifices to God and the manner in which idolaters would offer sacrifices to their gods:
And since idol worshipers would not bring bread but leaven, and would choose to bring sweet things and season their sacrifices with honey, and since none of their sacrifices included salt, this is why God warned against bringing any leaven and any honey, and commanded them to always include salt... (Guide for the Perplexed 3:46)
The obligation to salt grain offerings has a different status than the requirement to salt the other types of sacrifices, which is reflected by the laws derived from these verses: an unsalted grain offering is not valid even after the fact, while other sacrifices are deemed valid after the fact if they were brought unsalted (although, of course, one is initially obligated to salt them as well). See Rambam, Hilkhot Issurei Mizbe’ach 5:12.
Rambam generally views the service in the Temple as a “replacement” for idol worship. He explains: Man, by nature, cannot suddenly abandon everything to which he was accustomed. And when God sent our teacher Moses...and he said, “And you shall serve Him”; and as at that time the accepted way of life throughout the world, which they were accustomed to, and the general [concept of] service that they had been brought up with was to sacrifice various animals in halls in which idols stood, and they would bow to them and offer incense... [Therefore,] His wisdom, may He be blessed, and his gracious cunning, which is manifest with regard to all of his creatures, did not require Him to command [them] to leave those types of services and abandon and abolish them, for then they could never have considered accepting this, as is man’s nature, for he always tends towards that which he is accustomed to... Therefore He, may He be blessed, allowed them this worship, but transferred it from created or imaginary things which hold no truth to His blessed Name, and He commanded them to practice these things with regard to Him; and he commanded us to build him a Temple for Him: “And they shall make Me a temple,” and an altar to His Name: “An altar of earth you shall make for Me,” and that the sacrifices be made to Him: “When any man of you brings a sacrifice to God,” and that they bow to Him and bring Him incense. And He warned against doing any of these things to anyone but Him. (Guide for the Perplexed 3:32; see also ch. 46)
The Midrash HaGadol, as quoted by Otzar HaMidrashim, writes: “You shall offer salt” – and why all of this? The text decreed so to prevent similarity to idol worship and its sacrifices. And why? “For one who does these [i.e., worships idols] is an abomination to God” (Deut. 18:12). Therefore, the Torah warned against acting similarly to them. For Israel was only commanded regarding sacrifices so that they would be involved in worshiping God and not in worshiping other things. (Otzar HaMidrashim on Leviticus, p. 20)
Rabbenu Bahya attaches particular significance to the idolaters’ refusal to use salt in their sacrifices: And they would not bring [salt] with their sacrifices at all, since salt absorbs blood, and they distanced it from their sacrifices so that not one drop of blood would be lost – so drawn were they to Mars and his powers. And in order to spoil their intentions, the Torah commands: “You shall not leave out the salt.” (Rabbenu Bahya on Lev. 2:13) The purpose of salting the sacrifice was to remove any traces of blood, as a contrast to the idol worshipers who were careful to bring their sacrifices with the blood included.
Salt – The Traditional Seal of Covenants
Samuel David Luzzatto suggests another explanation for the obligation to add salt:
Until this day, the Arab princes bring a container of salt and eat bread and salt together when forming a covenant. And this was a well-known custom in the ancient Eastern countries that a covenant was sealed with salt. And since every sacrifice comes to placate and satisfy God and bring Him into a covenant with us, therefore He commanded us to put salt on every sacrifice and call that salt “the salt of the covenant of your God,” for with it you make a covenant with your God. (Samuel David Luzzatto on Lev. 12:13)
According to this interpretation, the sacrifices symbolize a covenant formed between man and God. Therefore, the Torah commanded us to sprinkle salt on the sacrifices, as it was customary to eat bread (or, in this case, the sacrifices) with salt when making a covenant.
Luzzatto does not discuss the source of the custom that links salt with forming a covenant, but merely accepts it as a cultural given. In this case, the Torah employs established human practices to convey a divine message. Rambam, too, does not attach any fundamental importance to the salt itself. He merely states that it is meant to contrast with the customs of idol worshipers at the time. This lesson will discuss the positive, fundamental significance of salting the sacrifices. We will start by reviewing other contexts in which salt is mentioned in the Bible and the commentaries.
B. The Properties of Salt and Salting the Sacrifices
Salt as a Destructive Force and its Connection to the Sacrifices
Salting the Earth – Part of Destruction
In the Bible, salt is generally mentioned in a negative context. For example, references to salt appear a number of times in descriptions of destruction:
The entire land is sulfur and salt and burning; it shall not be planted nor shall it grow, and no grass shall grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Deut. 29:22)
For Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, the breeding place of nettles, and salt pits, and desolation forever. (Zeph. 2:9)
And he shall inherit the parched places of the wilderness, a salt land and uninhabited. (Jer. 17:6)
Salt is Destructive and Prevents Growth
These verses portray salt as a substance that burns the ground and renders it infertile, thus transforming the earth into a barren wasteland.
Abimelech’s actions in Shechem can be read in the same way:
Abimelech fought in the city that entire day, and he captured the city, and he killed the nation within it, and he beat down the city sowed it with salt. (Judg. 9:45)
Ralbag explains: “And he beat down the city and sowed it with salt” – he did this so that it would not be fit for fields and vineyards. (Ralbag on Judg. 9:45)
While the verses do not explicitly mention the use of salt in this manner during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is still an element in the narrative:
And [Lot’s] wife looked behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. (Gen. 19:26)
Why was Lot’s wife punished by becoming a pillar of salt? According to Ibn Ezra, the punishment was that she was not saved with her family; she became a pillar of salt simply because this was the fate of the rest of the inhabitants of Sodom.
Apparently, salt causes land to become infertile and is linked to destruction and barrenness.
However, a simpler understanding of Rambam’s explanation is that in contrast to the idolatrous sacrifices, which were sweetened with honey, the Torah stated that the meat of the sacrifices must be salted in order to give it a different taste.
