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Seder Korbanoth written on vellum, the section of daily liturgy, composed of Biblical and Talmudic paragraphs which describe the rules and regulations pertaining to the sacrifices. Seder Korbanoth is kabbalistically presumed to be a segulah (remedy) for parnassah (financial well being) if recited daily from the vellum ms. The kabbalistic interpretation of the sacrifices is usually associated with the esoteric exposition of the tabernacle and the Temple, whose every detail has symbolic significance in the realm of the Sefirot, and with the connection between the individual Jew and the Jewish people as a whole and the divine world, both the good powers and the evil. In the Sefer ha-Bahir, the earliest text of the Kabbalah, the sacrifices are explained as the process which symbolically unites the priest performing the sacrifices with the divine world. The Hebrew term for sacrifice, korban, is interpreted as coming from the root karev – to bring together, to unite. The ideas of the Bahir were explained and details added by R. Isaac the Blind and developed by his pupil R. Ezra b. Solomon and by R. Azriel of Gerona. The mystical conception of the nature and purpose of sacrifice explains the act as a process which brings about the dynamic union of the divine powers, the Sefirot, and restores the soul of man and other created elements to their place of origin, that is to the Sefirah of which they had formed a part. The most detailed exposition of the symbolic meaning of the sacrifices is to be found in the Zohar and in the writings of the subsequent kabbalists.
In the Zohar the unifying effect of the sacrifice is explained in three ways: it joins the upper and lower worlds, bringing together the believer and God Himself; it unites the Sefirot Hokhmah and Binah (the "father" and "mother"); and, most important, it brings about the union of masculine and feminine principles in the divine world – the Shekhinah, that is the Sefirah Malkhut, and her husband, the Sefirah Tiferet. This symbolic process is interpreted in great detail in the Zohar, especially regarding the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. The material nature of the sacrifice, the use and slaughter of animals, is explained as a symbolic atonement for material sins. Because the evil powers in man are embedded in his flesh and blood, flesh and blood have to be sacrificed. More than that, the sacrifice frees the spirit of the animal, enabling it to rise to its divine root; the animals are symbolically connected with the animals described by Ezekiel in the throne-chariot, the Merkabah. According to the Zohar and later kabbalists, the sacrifices are also significant in the cosmic fight between good and evil in the divine world. In one place it is stated that the flesh of the sacrifice is, in fact, intended for Satan, and God receives only the kavvanah, the religious intention of the person who gives the sacrifice. Most kabbalists consider that at least part of the sacrifice is given to the evil power, the sitra ahra, to placate it. Other sacrifices are intended solely for the sitra ahra, especially the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. Its purpose is to drive the evil powers away from the holy union between Israel and God which is achieved on this day; it may also turn the Satan's enmity toward Israel into a more positive attitude and thus help achieve this union. |
