Spirituality – In Memoriam of Mr. David M. Warren (Menachem Dovid ben Harav Yosef Z’L)
The Torah requires two communal daily offerings, known as the Tamid, the “constant sacrifice”. They were brought every day without exception. (Numbers 28: 1-7)
The Sefer HaChinuch (13th Century), in an effort to give an explanation for every mitzvah, surmises the purpose of this commandment is to inspire and inculcate within our hearts the feelings of being close to G-d – just as man eats twice a day, so does he offer the Tamid sacrifice twice a day.
Why does the Sefer HaChinuch feel the need to compare the Tamid to anything, particularly something so mundane as eating?
The “Path of the Just” (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto 1707 - 1746) in his introduction explains that spiritual growth and saintliness is not the recitations of many Psalms, long confessions, difficult fasts and immersions in ice or snow waters. “All of these are incompatible with intellect and reason.”
In other words, if you can't relate to something on an intellectual level, you cannot grow spiritually from it.
Harav Shaya Cohen (Current Dean of Yeshiva Zichron Aryeh, Five Towns, NY) points out that although the Tamid is a communal sacrifice, the Sefer HaChinuch implies that, every individual had the power to tap into the purpose of the Sacrifice and having G-d in focus twice daily. Even though only the Kohanim (priests) were the ones who actually conducted the service for the Tamid, each person was able to use the Tamid for personal self spiritual growth.
The Sefer HaChinuch could have described the mystical aspect of the Tamid service, how the individual can spiritually connect, but, for most people, their only understanding, if any, would have been emotional, not intellectual. However, everybody can relate to eating.
Spiritual growth derives from acting on an intellectual level. If a person is acting purely emotionally, if he can't relate intellectually to what he's doing, then, whatever it is, it's not spiritual growth.
Shabbat Shalom