Pinchas: The Korban Tamid as … God’s Food?

How would you respond to the claim that korbanos are "God's food"? How would you account for the similarities between our korban tamid and idolatrous parallels? We look to the tamid for answers.

Jul 26, 2024

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Adobe Firefly 2.0’s response to the prompt: “fancy restaurant table with a delicious roast lamb, a goblet of wine, and a dish of flour mixed with oil”

Pinchas: The Korban Tamid as … God’s Food?

I am reluctant to begin on a negative note, but I must share the worst public “dvar Torah” I’ve ever heard. Years ago, I was in shul on Shabbos morning during a week when the shul’s regular rav was out of town, and a substitute rabbi was leading the services. The shul had a high percentage of baalei teshuvah (Jews who grew up non-religious), so the regular rav had the practice of summarizing the contents of each aliyah before it was read. These "mini-divrei Torah" were designed to give the congregants something to ponder during the Torah reading. The regular rav always managed to make these summaries informative, interesting, and relevant.

I don’t remember exactly which parashah it was, but it must have been Vayikra, Tzav, or Pinchas because the aliyos featured consecutive passages about korbanos (offerings). I was curious about what this substitute rabbi would say to make these archaic, "boring," and potentially alienating topics relatable to a modern audience with little background knowledge. I asked myself, "What would I say if I had to make these topics meaningful in three or four sentences?" What would you say?

Although I can’t recall his exact words, I remember the thrust of what the substitute rabbi said: “This parashah is about the korbanos we bring to God in the Temple. And He just eats ‘em up!” My jaw dropped. For the next aliyah, he said: “This aliyah has more offerings: wine, meat, grain – and Hashem just gobbles it all up.” And so on.

I was horrified. My best attempt at being dan l’chaf zechus (giving him the benefit of the doubt) is that he was attempting to make a joke or to inject some levity into what he feared would be a dry spell in the service. At best, this was a hugely wasted educational opportunity. At worst, it was a near-blasphemous degradation of Hashem.

And yet, there is one korban in this week’s parashah which the Torah characterizes as “God’s food.” I am referring to the korban tamid (daily “continual” offering), which is the first and last korban brought each day:

Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: “Command the Israelites; say to them: Take care to present My offering of foodstuffs (korbani lachmi) – fire offerings of pleasing aroma to Me – at the appointed times … two yearling lambs without blemish as a regular burnt offering each day. Offer one lamb in the morning and the second in the afternoon.” (Bamidbar 28:1-4)

The terminology of “God’s food” (lechem Elokim) also appears in Sefer Vayikra (21:8, 22:25), but the tamid is unique because it belongs to a preexisting ancient Near East genre of daily offerings which are overtly associated with mealtimes. Rabbi Dr. Zvi Ron (Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel: Numbers, p.181) provides an overview of how the tamid was both similar to and very different from these idolatrous offerings:

The offering of daily sacrifices to the deity in the morning and in the evening is found in other cultures of the ancient Near East, where these offerings were associated with the mealtimes of the gods. Note, however, that the main method of feeding the gods was to present the designated food before a representation of the deity (an idol in a temple) rather than to burn the food. The food was understood to nourish the gods in a way that could not be observed by people; after a certain amount of time had passed, it was the temple personnel who actually ate the food.
In Egypt, there were three daily temple rituals, but only the morning and evening ones involved bringing meals to the gods. This paralleled the Egyptian practice, common in antiquity, of eating two meals a day. Similarly, in the Sumerian temple of Uruk, two daily meals were offered to the gods – one when the temple opened in the morning, and the other just before it was closed in the evening. These meals had two courses: a main dish and a side dish.
While the tamid sacrifice is similar to the sacrifices of these ancient cultures in terms of the time of day it was offered, namely, morning and evening, and the contents, namely, a meat “main dish” accompanied by a meal offering and libation of wine, there was a major difference in the quantity offered. For example, the Mesopotamian god Anu was given the following foods and beverages daily at Uruk over the course of four meals: 12 vessels of wine, 2 vessels of milk, 108 vessels of beer, 243 loaves of bread, 29 bushels of dates, 21 rams, 2 bulls, 1 bullock, 8 lambs, 60 birds, 3 cranes, 7 ducks, 4 wild boars, 3 ostrich eggs, and 3 duck eggs. [1] This is radically different from the relatively simple tamid sacrifice, consisting of one single lamb, the most inexpensive meat, accompanied by wheat, wine, and oil, products that were readily available.

This quantitative difference aside, how can we make sense of Hashem’s characterization of the korban tamid as “My offering of foodstuffs”? What differentiates our twice-daily offering from the idolatrous parallels? And regardless of Near Eastern practices, how does the Torah intend for us to think about the notion of “God’s food”?

The Sefer ha’Chinuch (#401) addresses this in his explanation of the reason for the tamid:

We were commanded in this continual service, which was twice a day – at sunrise and when it turned toward evening – that we might be stirred by this activity and set all our heart and all our thoughts to cling to Hashem, blessed is He. As I have said many times, a man is influenced and his nature stirred according to the occupation of his activity. Therefore, since a man is so constituted that he needs to prepare food for himself twice [a day], evening and morning, he was commanded to set his purpose and occupation about the business of the service of his Creator likewise two times [a day] so that the work of the servant for himself should not be greater than his service to his Master. And why all this? – to bestir his spirit and desire continually to remember his Creator, and thus he will make his actions worthy and will be blessed by Him, for He desires chesed (kindness). As Chazal expounded: “an offering by fire, a pleasing aroma to Hashem” – [namely,] “that I spoke and My will was done” (Sifrei Bamidbar 28:8). In other words, God’s entire share of any offering is nothing more than [the fulfillment of] His desire, that the servant did what He commanded him, that he might become virtuous to attain His good reward (blessed is He).

According to the Sefer ha’Chinuch, the korban tamid is a daily reminder of the servant-master relationship between us and our Creator. A servant preparing his own daily meals will reflect on his responsibility to prepare the meals of his master. This, in turn, will prompt the servant to reflect on his indebtedness to his master for providing nourishment and his duty to serve faithfully. Similarly, our two daily meals should remind us of the two daily meal offerings brought in the Mikdash. [2] We will be filled with gratitude to our Master for providing us with our daily bread – and even giving us “the ability to make wealth” (Devarim 8:18) – and we will be reminded of our duty to serve Him with gratitude and indebtedness for the many kindnesses He has shown us on a daily basis.

We can now appreciate the fundamental difference between the idolatrous daily meal offerings and the korban tamid. The idolators believed they were actually feeding their gods and that their offerings were consumed by some mysterious process for which there was no evidence in reality. But in the case of the tamid and all other korbanos, “God’s entire share of any offering is nothing more than the fulfillment of His desire, that the servant did what He commanded him, that he might become virtuous to attain His good reward.” What is true of the tamid is true of all mitzvos: “Hashem commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Hashem our God, for our good always, that He provide us with life as this day” (Devarim 6:24). They are for our benefit. God has no needs.

In conclusion, although the Torah indeed refers to some korbanos as “God’s food,” the substitute rabbi’s gross characterization of korabos couldn’t be more wrong. We do not bring the tamid so “Hashem can gobble it up.” We bring the tamid for our own spiritual nourishment, to make us worthy in God’s eyes that we may truly live.

Footnotes:

[1] In contrast to Anu’s lavish daily offerings, which must have imposed a significant burden on the community, the korban tamid and all other communal korbanos were funded by the community for the paltry annual contribution of a half-shekel.

[2] ChatGPT4o estimates that the total cost of each day’s offering would amount to around $17,000, which is the equivalent of $6,145,140 each year! Even if this figure isn’t accurate, the cost of such offerings must have been exorbitant.

What do you think of the Sefer ha’Chinuch’s explanation of the tamid? Do you have a favorite explanation?

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