Bechukotai: Ten Animals and Future Holiness
We’ve now reached the end of the third book of the Torah, Sefer Vayikra. The final chapter of Vayikra deals with an assortment of laws relating to voluntary offerings, vows, and things that are made holy, kadosh, to God. In the very final verses of this book, we learn about the tithes of cattle and sheep
וְכׇל־מַעְשַׂ֤ר בָּקָר֙ וָצֹ֔אן כֹּ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲבֹ֖ר תַּ֣חַת הַשָּׁ֑בֶט הָֽעֲשִׂירִ֕י יִֽהְיֶה־קֹּ֖דֶשׁ לַֽיהֹוָֽה׃ יְבַקֵּ֛ר בֵּֽין־ט֥וֹב לָרַ֖ע וְלֹ֣א יְמִירֶ֑נּו וְאִם־הָמֵ֣ר יְמִירֶ֔נּוּ וְהָֽיָה־ה֧וּא וּתְמוּרָת֛וֹ יִֽהְיֶה־קֹּ֖דֶשׁ לֹ֥א יִגָּאֵֽל׃
And all tithes of cattle and sheep, anything that passes under the staff, the tenth will be holy to the Lord. He shall not look out for good or bad, and he shall not replace it. And if in fact he replaces it, it and its replacement will be holy, it shall not be redeemed. (Vayikra 27:32-33)
Here, the shepherd uses a staff to count off sheep and cattle, and the tenth one counted is made kadosh to God (meaning, according to Rashi, that it is sacrificed and its flesh eaten by the owner). The shepherd may not, however, replace that tenth animal with either a better or a worse animal. If the animal is replaced, though, that replacement cannot be sacrificed.
The Meshech Chochma will pick up on a difference between the use of the phrase יהיה קודש, it will be made holy, which appears once in each verse above. In the first verse, it references the tenth animal and the phrase used is יהיה קודש לה׳, it will be made holy to God. In the second verse, when the phrase refers to the replacement animal, “God” is omitted. It simply says יהיה קודש, it will be made holy. Holy how, exactly? This is the distinction that triggers the Meshech Chochma on our verses.
והיה הוא ותמורתו יהיה קדש לא יגאל. דייק העשירי יהיה קדש לד', פירוש להקרבה, “ותמורתו יהיה קדש,” פירוש, שאינו קרב, כדין תמורת מעשר, דרועה, ואינו לד' רק קדש בלבד
ובתו"כו ומנין שמעשר בהמה בעמוד ועשר? ת"ל “יהיה קדש” מלמד שמעשר בהמה בעמוד ועשר ריה"ג אומר והעברת״ מלמד שמעשר בהמה בעמוד ועשר. נראה משום דריה"ג לטעמיה, דסבר קדשים קלים ממון בעלים, וכן לרבי, דסבר פסח ממון בעלים בפסחים צ' צריך קרא ד”יהיה קדש” ולא שכבר קדוש, לכן כתיב בלשון עתיד, דסד"א דפסח ושלמים נכנסין לדיר להתעשר, כדאמר הגמ' בבכורות ריש פרק מעשר בהמה, לכן איצטרכו קראי אחרינא שמצוה לעשר מעשר בהמה. ודו"ק.
It and its replacement will be holy, it will not be redeemed. Notice that the tenth “will be holy to Hashem,” this means through sacrifice, and that “its replacement will be holy”--this does not mean sacrifice according to the law of substitution, that it grazes, and it is not for God, but is just holy.
And in the Sifra it says, “From where do we know that the animal tithe is commanded? Scripture says ‘it will be holy’ to teach that the animal tithe is a commandment. Rabbi Yose HaGlili says: “and it will pass” teaches that the animal tithe is a commandment. It seems that since Rabbi Yose HaGlili goes according to his reasoning, that he holds that animals of lesser holiness remain the property of the owner, and also that Rebbi [Yehuda HaNasi], who holds that even the Pesach sacrifice remains the [monetary] property of the owner (Pesachim 90b), we need the verse to say animals that “will be holy,” not animals already holy. Therefore, the verse is in the future tense, that I would have thought that the Pesach and peace offerings go into the pen to be tithed, as it says in BT Bechorot 53b about tithing animals, [this is not the case], therefore we needed another verse to say that it is a mitzvah to tithe animals.
The Meshech Chochma first posits that the reason “God” is omitted in the second use of the phrase יהיה קודש is that “God” is only used if the animal is sacrificed. Since the replacement animal is not sacrificed to God but is rather left to graze for the rest of its life, “God” is left out of the verse.
Now we come to the second piece of the Meshech Chochma’s comment on our verse. These two comments are separate, but relate to the same part of our verse: יהיה קודש, it will be holy.
Part of what the Meshech Chochma is responding to here is the specific wording of verse 32. When the verse mentions the animal tithe, it says כל אשר יעבור, everything that passes. What’s odd here is that it seems there is no imperative to do the tithe. The verse does not read תעבירו, pass [the animal] through. However, we know that this tithe is a commandment. How do we know that the animal tithe is a commandment if this verse doesn’t say so as clearly as we’d like?
We get a few potential resolutions to this. The first is from Rabbi Yose HaGlili, who holds that sacrifices of lesser holiness (i.e. peace offerings and the Pesach sacrifice) remain in the monetary control of the owner until they are sacrificed (perhaps because the owner eats part of the animal after sacrifice). This means that animals may be set aside for sanctification and still technically belong to the owner and not yet entirely to God. One might infer from this that those sanctified animals (prior to sacrifice) must be tithed like any other animal. However, we learn in the mishnah in Bechorot that this is not the case, and these animals are not included in the tithing.
Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (whom we met in parshat Kedoshim) learns the commandment to tithe animals from the verse following the ones we saw above. That verse opens with אלה המצוות, these are the commandments. He reads this phrase back into the previous verse in order to learn out commandedness with regard to tithing, thus solving the dilemma.
The other difficulty that the Meshech Chochma is pointing us toward is the future tense of “holy.” In verse 32, the Torah says that the tenth animal “will be holy,” in the future tense. Why wouldn’t the Torah write that the animal is holy? It should already be so!
This, I think, relates back to the Meshech Chochma’s general reflections upon kedusha, holiness, which we’ve seen him write about already several times this year.1 The reason that the Torah writes about holiness in the future tense here is that there is still an action that the owner of the animal must take to complete its holiness: sacrifice. One might think that the designation of the animal as the tenth of the herd is enough to endow it with holiness, but the process is not yet complete.
I think this provides an important lesson for us. Holiness is not an inherent characteristic, but one that must be actively sought after and accomplished.
It is an action that confers holiness upon a place or a thing, in our case this week an animal. That tenth ox set aside by its owner for a tithe is not holy in and of itself, as our verse indicates. It only will be holy in the future, when its process is completed through sacrifice. It is what’s yet to come, the יהיה, that is most consequential. Shabbat shalom.