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Glossary · Torah Ohr · Likkutei Torah

Korbanos

קרבנות

Korbanos (offerings) · also: אכילת מזבח, אריה דאכיל קרבנין

The altar offerings, called G‑d’s “bread”: the animal, offered in place of the person’s animal soul, is raised to its root and nullified, as fire from above consumes it. Prayer now takes their place.

The word Korban is first the Temple offering itself, an animal brought on the altar. The maamarim also read it as the inner service it stood for, the raising of one’s animal soul, which prayer now carries out, and as “drawing near” (kiruv) and uniting the levels.

Where it’s explained

  1. Likkutei Torah, Shabbos Shuvah 3, ¶33An offering means that the animal is brought on the altar in place of the person’s animal soul, a soul for a soul. Now that we have no offerings, prayer stands in place of the offering, and Michael the High Priest offers the souls of Israel; the same paragraph says that teshuvah is greater than all the offerings.שמקריבים הבהמה ע״ג המזבח תמורת נפש הבהמית של האדם נפש תחת נפש
  2. Likkutei Torah, Beshalach 1, ¶14Of the three ways a wife is acquired, read as kindness, Torah and service, the third is the service (avodah), which is the offerings: the bringing near and uniting of the levels. Now prayer is in place of the offerings, its eighteen blessings set against the eighteen vertebrae of the spine through which the flow descends from the brain.ובביאה זהו ענין עבודה שהוא קרבנות קירוב ויחוד המדרגות
  3. Likkutei Torah, Nasso 7, ¶2The offerings are called bread (“My offering, My bread for My fires”), and the Sages speak of two eatings, of man and of the altar. The eating of the altar is that fat and blood were offered on it and fire came down from above in the form of a lion and consumed them: the Zohar’s “lion that eats the offerings.”והיה יורד אש מלמעלה כדמות אריה ותאכל את העולה ואת חלבי השלמים
  4. Likkutei Torah, Pinchas 3, ¶3The principal nullification of yesh into ayin is in the act of the offerings, which is why song accompanied them. The animal’s soul rises through the offering and is included in its root in the merkavah, and from there, through the lion that eats the offerings, Chesed above aroused by the kohen’s Chesed below, it rises to be included in the Or Ein Sof itself.והנה עיקר הביטול יש לאין הוא במעשה הקרבנות
  5. Torah Ohr, Toldos 5, ¶9Fragrance (rei’ach) is the raising of mayin nukvin, returning light that comes from the gevuros and from refining the sparks that fell in the breaking of the vessels. That is why “a pleasing fragrance” is said of the offerings and not of the other mitzvos: in them the animal soul is raised, transformed, and included in the fire above.ולכן בכל המצות לא נאמר ריח ניחוח כמו בקרבנות שהוא ע״י שמעלין נפש הבהמה ומתהפך ועולה ונכלל באש שלמעלה

Stated differently

Where the soul of the offered animal is taken from: the face of the ox in the merkavah, or the unrefined dregs of the ofanim

Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 4, ¶18שהקרבנות היו בנפש הבהמה להעלותה לשרשה שנלקחה מבחי׳ פני שור שבמרכבה

The offerings dealt with the animal soul, to raise it to its root, from which it was taken: the face of the ox in the merkavah. The chayos that bear the throne are above the level of “Adam” because their root is from the world of Tohu (so too Pinchas 3:3: the animals’ soul is from the face of the ox on the left).

Likkutei Torah, Tzav 1, ¶11כי נפש הבהמה נלקחה משמרי האופנים שלא הובררו

The animal soul was taken from the dregs of the ofanim that were not refined. Therefore it is refined by the face of the lion in the merkavah, which is above even the ofanim themselves, and Aharon, who eats the offerings, draws the eating of the supernal Adam on the throne, above the face of the lion.

Main sources

Likkutei Torah, Nasso 7, ¶2Likkutei Torah, Nasso 7, ¶3Likkutei Torah, Pinchas 3, ¶3Likkutei Torah, Tzav 1, ¶10Likkutei Torah, Tzav 1, ¶11Likkutei Torah, Matos 2, ¶18Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 4, ¶18Torah Ohr, Toldos 5, ¶9

Where it appears

In 226 paragraphs of 111 maamarim.

Written with AI from the paragraphs of Torah Ohr and Likkutei Torah, each entry checked by a second AI reader and every Hebrew quote checked by code; not yet reviewed by a person. Our English: CC BY-NC 4.0.

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