I Swear I'll Shut My Mouth

The various sacrifices presented in Parashat Vayikra are well-organized, making it easy not only to remember them, but also to reflect upon their deeper meaning. The following table makes this structure immediately apparent:

Chapter	Type of Sacrifices Presented
1	Olot – Burnt Offerings
2	Menachot – Grain Offerings
3	Shelamim – Peace Offerings
4	Chata’ot – Sin Offerings
5	Ashamim – Guilt Offerings

Of course, things are not entirely this simple. Grain offerings include both those which are effectively identical to Burnt Offerings, as well as those which are similar to Peace Offerings and Sin Offerings. And some of the Guilt Offerings may well be considered forms of Sin Offerings. The differences between the various offerings draw our attention and produced deep insights into the meanings of the offerings.

I was particularly intrigued this year by the first passage in Chapter 5. There, it speaks of four circumstances which occasion the bringing of a Guilt Offering which is called by the Sages a “Korban Oleh v’Yored”, a sliding-scale offering. This offerings, according to some not a true Guilt Offering but actually more akin to a Sin Offering, is practically unique among obligatory offerings in that what is brought depends on the means of the bringer – whether he is wealthy, poor, or “dirt-poor”, to borrow the terminology of the Sages. It seems as though the Torah is “going out of its way” to make sure no one can claim they simply do not have the means to bring this offering, should they run afoul of the circumstances. There is just one other offering in Jewish tradition which shares this characteristic to an extent – the Guilt Offering brought by the leper after he has been cured from an impurity so severe it cast him out of his town entirely, as part of a set of offerings which mark his return to purity and the community. It would seem that the impurity and ostracism imparted by these violations - the Sages speak of leprosy as coming in the wake of severe violations of the prohibition of evil speech - are so life-altering that a way back must be provided for members of every socioeconomic grouping.

But what is the nature of this sacrifice and what are the circumstances in which it is brought? Here, we should let the Torah speak:

1.       And if any one sin, in that he hear the voice of adjuration, he being a witness, whether he has seen or known, if he does not speak up, then he shall bear his iniquity;

2.       or if any one touch any unclean thing, whether it be the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean cattle, or the carcass of unclean swarming things, and be guilty, it being hidden from him that he is unclean;

3.       or if he touch the uncleanness of man, whatsoever his uncleanness be wherewith he is unclean, and it be hid from him; and, when he know of it, be guilty;

4.       or if any one swear clearly with his lips for harm, or for benefit, whatsoever it be that a man shall utter clearly with an oath, and it be hid from him; and, when he knows of it, be guilty in one of these things;

and it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that wherein he hath sinned; and he shall bring his forfeit unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin-offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin.

What do these cases have in common that they are all included together? Note that the first and last concern what issues (or should issue) forth from a person’s faculty of speech, whereas the middle two deal with accidental violation due to unwitting impurity.                                  

The hallmark of the human is language, it’s what sets apart humans from animals. Despite the great strides made in research regarding use of something akin to language by animals, the gulf is so huge that the perhaps quantitative difference are actually quantitative. Humans need to speak to be human, and those deprived of the capacity for speech and communication, unless they can develop a replacement language, are condemned to a life that in some senses falls short of what it means to be human.

But “החיות בצוא ושוב”, living vitality ebbs and flows, and speech, especially as it issues forth from one and is directed to another, can be as perfect as the hammer blow which drives the nail and completes the vessel, or as cruel and destructive as the hammer blow which crushes the skull of a detested other. There are times when we must speak, and times when we must refrain from speech.

When a person can testify to something which can resolve a contested matter, whether civil or criminal, yet refuses to do so, that person has failed to use his human gift and definition to bring truth and justice into the world. Perhaps he was given the ability to speak precisely for that one moment of potential clarification, yet he remained mute and dumb like an animal. The productive flow of words, generative of the human in him, has been stopped up, he is impure, he must atone.

When a person need not say anything, when he should not join the mindless bantering of people’s chit-chat which serves to pass the time and draw one’s attention away from awareness of standing ever before G-d, that joyous yet unbearable intensity… and yet he does, and, deigning to impress others with his conviction and knowledge, he ups the ante and swears an oath that something is or isn’t the case, using G-d’s name for his own mundane and petty designs. That person has violate the sacred trust of speech, invoking the Holy Name by which G-d created all, which is being itself, he has run on at the mouth, his creative life-essence has overflowed by a surfeit of misplaced zeal, he is impure, he must atone.

We can sum up the Torah's presentation of this four situations as follows:

Verbal Impurity	Death of Speech	Animal Like
Physical Impurity	Death of Body	Animals
Physical Impurity	Overflow of Life-Imparting Liquids	Humans
Verbal Impurity	Overflow of Life-Creating Names	Human Like

Someone whose words have had great repercussions in our world is reported to have said, “It is not that which enters the mouth which renders one impure, but that which emerges from the mouth”. Was he or his listeners aware that the source for the correct latter part of this claim is to be found right here in Parashat Vayikra, with much greater depth and nuance?