“The Fifth Dimension” Parashat Pinchas 5785
I have long ceased to be surprised when I suddenly notice something that has been standing right before my eyes for over sixty years. People typically see what they expect to see, such that when something breaks this mold, it is usually smoothed over. Douglas Adams, in his “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, called this the “SEP (Someone Else’s Problem) Field.” The human brain is wired to ignore things it deems irrelevant to its immediate needs. The SEP field exploits this, making the improbable blend into the background, as long as it is perceived as belonging to someone else’s domain. But this time, SEP went too far.
The issue at hand is the additional (Mussaf) communal sacrifices offered in the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash) on Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, and the holidays. These offerings form the backbone of the Mussaf prayer recited on each of these days. The Mussaf offerings consist of a number of animals offered as Olah sacrifices – each holiday has a different set of animals that constitute the Olah of that day – along with a sin offering (Chattat), usually a goat. Now here is my SEP Field: Shabbat is the only holy day with a Mussaf offering that does not include a sin offering. Two sheep are sacrificed as Olah offerings, and that’s it. How could I not have noticed this until now? Somebody else’s problem had become my own.
This problem was seen nearly a millennium ago by the Hizkuni[1]. To understand his explanation, we must realize that different sacrifices are mandated by different sets of rules. The Olah sacrifice is completely burnt. The entire animal is offered to G-d. The Shelamim sacrifice, on the other hand, is eaten by the person who offers it. The Chattat lies somewhere in between the Olah and the Shelamim: Certain parts of the Chattat are eaten, but only by designated individuals – male priests (kohanim) – and only under strict conditions – the kohen must be ritually pure and the meat must be eaten in the Temple courtyard. The Hizkuni notes that the sanctity of Shabbat prohibits creative labour (melacha), including the slaughter of animals for human consumption, which is integral to the Chattat process. The Olah, burned entirely for G-d, aligns with Shabbat’s focus on Divine rest and worship, avoiding acts with any kind of practical use or human benefit. The Hizkuni posits that the honor of Shabbat precludes slaughter for eating, reserving the day for offerings wholly to G-d.
This answer left me only partially satisfied. For while putting the tick in the halachic box, I was looking for an answer with greater philosophical content. As I mentioned in a previous essay, I sometimes “converse” with Grok, my go-to AI Chatbot, to get the “lay of the land.” When I asked Grok for a philosophical answer, I received the following: “Philosophically, Shabbat represents a state of inherent holiness and perfection, diminishing the need for a communal sin offering to address inadvertent transgressions. The Ramban[2] (on Bemidbar 28:9) argues that Shabbat’s holiness, derived from creation, elevates the community spiritually, making the Olah, symbolizing complete devotion, sufficient. Other holidays require a Chattat to prepare the people for festive purity, but Shabbat’s intrinsic holiness transcends this need, emphasizing direct connection to the Divine over rectification.” Grok’s answer blew me away, in no small part because of its elucidation of the Ramban, who writes cryptically “The congregation of Israel is its partner [that of the Shabbat], and all is peace, and this is enough for now (v’dai la’meivin).” The Ramban typically uses the phrase “v’dai la’meivin” to indicate that he is diving into esoteric Torah – not for the masses – and yet Grok did a commendable job of following him.
And then Grok did something completely unexpected: It asked me if I would like an answer in the style of Rabbi J.B. Soloveichik[3]. Being an ardent “fan” of Rabbi Soloveichik, I typed in “yes.” Grok proceeded to give me a comprehensive answer, bringing quotes from Rabbi Soloveichik’s works as prooftexts. Grok did indeed spit out a “Soloveichik-esque” explanation, true to style. But while Grok strung together some nice ideas, I believe it missed the point. Here is what I think Rabbi Soloveichik’s answer might have looked like:
The first commandment received by the Jewish People in Egypt is the marking of time [Shemot 12:2]: “This month [of Nissan] shall be to you the first month”. A slave lacks time-experience. To the slave, time is a curse. His time is not his own – it belongs to his master. In “Festival of Freedom,” Rabbi Soloveitchik writes, “No matter how hard [the slave] may try to be productive in time, he will not reap the harvest of his work. Therefore, he is insensitive to time… he lacks the great excitement of opportunities knocking at the door, of challenges summoning him to action, of tense expectations of fear and failure.” A slave has no future, his past is a blur, and his present is meaningless. Consequently, he is relieved of positive time-bound commandments. Time is a critical component of Judaism. We pray at certain times but not others. We celebrate festivals that commemorate historical events. We can eat chametz until exactly the end of the fourth hour. Rabbi Soloveichik writes, “Time awareness contains a moral process: responsibility for emerging events and intervention in the historical process.” Until the exodus, Jews lived in 3-dimensional space: (x,y,z) – latitude, longitude, altitude. The first commandment gave us a 4th dimension, t, the dimension of time.
Shabbat adds an additional dimension. In “Halakhic Man,” Rabbi Soloveitchik portrays Shabbat as a realm of ontological perfection, a day that reflects creation restored and sin transcended: “Shabbat is a projection of the end of days… when creation reaches its goal and sin has no place.” What is a “projection”? A projection is a transformation that “flattens” an n-dimensional object (where n is the number of dimensions) onto an (n-1)-dimensional space by discarding one dimension or by collapsing it along a specified direction[4]. Imagine a 3-dimensional cube (n=3) projected onto a 2-dimensional plane (n-1=2). If you shine a light from a fixed direction, the cube’s shadow on the plane is a two-dimensional shape, like a square or rectangle, depending on the direction of the light. This shadow is the projection of the cube. Rabbi Soloveichik argues that Shabbat does not lie in the human plane of existence. Shabbat is other-worldly. We can see only its projection, its shadow. Shabbat does not lie on the axis of time, rather, it lies on an axis above time. Shabbat is the 5th dimension.
With this background in hand, we can now appreciate how the Chattat – or lack of – fits in to the Mussaf offering. The Torah contains rules and regulations on how to live in 4-dimensional space. Where we may go and where we may not. When we are free to labor or to eat leavened bread and when we are not. These limitations must, by definition, lead to sin, if only because of human imprecision, to say nothing of human disobedience or his penchant for rebellion. As such, atonement must be baked into the days that serve as archetypes for our mastery over time: Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, and the holidays. But 4-dimensional limitations, along with their resultant sin and atonement, are not relevant in the 5th dimension. Shabbat is truly other-worldly. It is a foretaste of the World to Come. It is an archetype for redemption, a temporary withdrawal from the material world to experience Divine harmony, or, in Grok’s paraphrasing of the Ramban, “emphasizing direct connection to the Divine”. In the 5th dimension, sin is undefined – it “has no place”. We can still choose how we move in 4-dimensional space, whether or not we keep the laws of Shabbat, but Shabbat as a concept will always remain pristine. We can sully our Shabbat but we can never sully the Shabbat.
On Shabbat, atonement becomes Someone Else’s Problem, invisible, belonging to someone else’s domain. On Shabbat, the only thing we need to see is redemption.
Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5785
Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Iris bat Chana, Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devora bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Esther bat Hila, and Meir ben Drora.
[1] Rabbi Hezekiah ben Manoah, known as the Hizkuni, lived in France in the 13th century.
[2] Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, known by his acronym Ramban, lived in Spain and Israel in the 13th century.
[3] Rabbi Soloveichik was the leader of Modern Orthodox Jewry in North America during the 2nd half of the previous century.
[4] I know this line is going to chase some people away, but it had to be stated.
