An Introduction to the Avoda of Semicha

the topic of today's daf and tomorrow's daf and the first half of the daf after that is going to be the avoida of smicha. So, one of the ancillary extra credit bigger components of the hakrova of a carbon was smicha. Loosely translated, smicha meant that the ba'al hakrova would go and he would lean on the head of the carbon b'chol kocho with all his might. Now, exactly where on the head, one hand, two hands, what does b'chol kocho mean? Did every single person that brought a carbon have to do smicha? Noshrim, do they have a chiyuv smicha? What about the carbon of an over k'chovin? Could smicha be done by a day shliach? These are all the subtopics of the sugya of smicha and this is all what the nosei of the daf is going to be for the next two dafin and change, but I think it's kedai being that this is going to be the topic of the next few days, just to give a tiny bit of an introduction, not a halachic introduction, that is going to be the topic of the dafin, but just the p'shutei sh'mi'ah to understand a little bit what this idea of smicha is. So, the first time smicha is mentioned in the Torah is really the first time a carbon is formally mentioned in the Torah. It's right in the beginning of Toras Kohanim. It's in Parshas Vayikra, perek aleph, believe it or not, pasuk dalet. The pasuk says Vayikra el Moshe vayidaber Hashem elav me'Ohel Mo'ed leimor, that's pasuk aleph. Takrivu es korbanchem, that's pasuk bet. We jump right in. Im oiv hakorbanos, in the event that a person is going to bring a korban oyla So, if somebody's bringing a carbon oil and he's bringing it min habakar, so the first thing he needs to do is is to take this ben habakar and bring it to the entranceway of the oil mayed. The oil mayed, that's where the avoida is going to take place. Now what? First avoida, the samach yodai al roisha oila. This person who is bringing a carbon oila lirtzoino lifnei Hashem should now be samach yodai on the head of the oila the nirtza lo l'chaper alav. And by him doing that, he's going to attain ritzoy. The purpose of the oila is to get kapara. He's going to ultimately get kapara. V'shachat es ben habakar lifnei Hashem b'do sh'chita. Vayikrivu bnei Aharon hakohanim es hadam. We know Chazal said is referring to kabala. It also means halacha. V'zarku es hadam al hamizbeiach saviv. That's the gaggai gaggai avoida. That's the zrika. V'chulu v'chulu the Torah goes on and it explains the rest of the avoidas of the oila. And what if the oila was brought min hatzoin? And what if you decided to bring a mincha or sh'lamim or chatas? That's all what's being discussed here in the beginning of Vayikra. But the very very first avoida that's mentioned is that the baal hakorban takes this animal. He brings it to the pesach of the oil mayed. V'samach yodai al roisha oila. And he does smicha. Now, what exactly does the smicha accomplish? So, you'll tell me, what exactly does the hakdara say more than accomplish? What does the zrika accomplish? This is all heebie-jeebie. On some level, this is all above our pay grade. Ein Ramban in the beginning of Vayikra and different Rishonim in different places. So, smicha is one of these esoteric actions that need to be done in the context of korbanos, which is something that's really a little bit above our pay grade. Stating that if you take a look in Parshas Acharei Mos, by the avodah of Yom Kippur, so one of the unique carbonos, using that term loosely, that was brought was the sa'ir hamishtale'ach. And the possuk says that Aaron HaKohen, who did all the avodahs on Yom Kippur, before he brought the sa'ir hamishtale'ach, "V'samach Aharon es shtei yadov al rosh hasa'ir hachessed." He had to do smicha with both of his hands on the head of the live sa'ir. That's the sa'ir hamishtale'ach. And when he did the smicha, he would recite vidui. And he would talk about all the aveiros that Klal Yisrael did. "V'sach kol p'sha'eim l'chol chatosam." "V'nosan oisam al rosh hasa'ir." And he would take all those aveiros that he's being misvadeh, and he would place them on the head of the sa'ir while he's doing the smicha. "V'shilach b'yad ish itti el hamidbar." And then he would export, he would send out the sa'ir hamishtale'ach with an ish itti to the midbar. The next possuk, "V'nasa hasa'ir aleiha es kol aveinosam el eretz g'zeirah." The sa'ir, now that it just acquired, rachmana litzlan, all the aveinos and the p'sha'im and the chatos of Klal Yisrael is going to carry those aveinos, it's going to bring it to eretz g'zeirah. "V'shilach es hasa'ir bamidbar." And it's going to go to the midbar, and we're going to go through with the avodah of bring the sa'ir hamishtale'ach. Here too, the Torah talks about an inyan of smicha, but just from reading the possuk him, what it sounds like is, what the smicha did was the smicha took the aveirah that this person is trying to get kaparah for, it took it from his places and it put it onto the places of the animal. As if to say that through the smicha, on some level, what he's saying is what we say when we shluach kaparos. He's saying, "Zeh chalfi, zeh kaparti, zeh kaparti." I have the aveiro. I'm doing some physical action right now. We are the aveiro is going to go from me and it's going to go on to the animal on which I'm doing smicha. The truth is, I saw in the safe Akeidas Yitzchak. Safe Akeidas Yitzchak which was written by the Baal Akeida, Rebbi Yitzchak Arama, zechuso yagen aleinu. He was from the Megurshei Sefarad, one of the Kadmonim and he's very, very meyerch in the beginning of Parshas Vayikra about this inyan of smicha and he says that the truth is, if you know how to look, you'll find and notice that the idea of smicha is not unique to gotcha. But you find really the concept of smicha in other places of the Torah. Just to mention one. In Parshas Pinchas, the pasuk says "Vayomer Hashem el Moshe, Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe, Kach lecha es Yehoshua bin Nun, take Yehoshua bin Nun, visamachta es yado alav." And you should give him smicha. And right? "Visamachta es yado alav." And you should take from your height and you should place it upon him. Moshe Rabbeinu was told to appoint the next leader and who's the next leader going to be? It's going to be Yehoshua bin Nun. But you don't just appoint him, you don't just make a big hakhtara, but you have to do smicha. Skipping several psukim, the pasuk says that Moshe Rabbeinu was "Vayas kasher tzeva Hashem es Moshe, vayismach es yadav alav." He did smicha. "Vayetza veyo kasher divar Hashem el Moshe" and he commanded that he instructed Yehoshua bin Nun to do everything that Hakadosh Baruch Hu told him to do. It sounds a little bit from the psukim that the smicha was part and parcel of how Moshe Rabbeinu took his grace guide and he imparted it onto Yehoshua bin Nun. The truth is, if you're not convinced from these psukim, this is a checkmate pasuk. At the very end of the day, the very end of it's literally from the last Joshua Molly Joshua was filled with a guest of why he saw because for that reason he was now all of a sudden Molly exactly the way in fact if you go back to pin codes actually says as the other one He did it by and he off and he did it much better than what I told him I'm going to go and tell him to with one hand but who with two hands for because he didn't just do with one hand but did with two hands so ultimately what that meant was going to get much more than what he would have gotten Here says the nothing to do with has nothing to do with it has to do with that's what it has to do with has to do with with that's what's going on over here but how is imparting from his from his onto the way he's doing it is through an action of because is some of how a person can take something that is in him and somehow imparted upon somebody else In the context of what it means is a is carrying with him so they gave him this incredible the concept of a carbon where you can take an animal and you do on the animal and when you do on the animal you're taking whatever of it's going from you and now all of a sudden it's going to go on the animal that is a little bit the Indian of what is It's Pasha that this gives a little bit of a better pun than to why it is that the possuk says that when the coin Godol did the smicha on the sa shaliach, he was misvada. Because really, if you think about it, the smicha is this incredible cosmic action. You're taking these aveiros that somehow are attributed to your neshama and you're making them go on this nefesh habahamit. That's not something you can merely do with an action. That's poshut. That would have to involve a level of teshuvah, a level of hakara that I sinned, chatosi, avisi, upashati. And that's why the coin Godol, when he would do the smicha, he had to be misvada. The truth is that it wasn't just the coin Godol when he did smicha that was misvada. The Rambam says in the end of perek gimmel of hilchos maaseh hakorbanos, after the Rambam it describes a little bit what the inyan of smicha is. Says the Rambam, So we'll see So the Rambam says that it wasn't just the coin Godol on Yom Kippur by the sa shaliach that was misvada when he did smicha. But every single year when he did smicha, he was misvada. Just to bring this out a drop better. Everybody knows one of the most famous Rambams, perek gimmel alacha aleph in hilchos teshuvah, where the Rambam talks about the importance of teshuvah. And the Rambam says that all the different things that you find in the Torah that will mechaper, they will only mechaper if you did teshuvah. They will only mechaper if you were misvada. Says the Rambam in middle, "V'chein ba'alei chatos v'ashamos, ba'ish mevi carbon shelemim al shigegas on al done on in mischaber on the carbon." The carbon didn't give >> when he goes through all the things that worked maybe on their own it only worked with truva one of the things he says is they had to be when did they do truva? You want to know exactly when it happened? It happened at the time of the smicha I don't know but we'll see at the very very end of today's daf the last line of the daf the gemara is going to learn from a drasha that smicha cannot be done by a shliach almost every single aspect of bringing a carbon could have been done by a shliach the service of Adam was done by the Kohanim but at the end of the day usually the job of the owner of the carbon was to bring his animal to the Beit Hamikdash and then the Kohanim took over from there but based on one of six extra mentions of the word carbon we'll see in the daf the Kohanim learned only the owner of the carbon was allowed to do smicha if you're not the owner of the carbon you were not allowed to do smicha it's because the essence of smicha is really it's the physical component of the truva of the vidui and that's something a Jew has to do by himself truva it's possible you can't do by a shliach vidui it's possible you can't do by a shliach smicha which is part and parcel of that Indian is also something you can't do by a shliach just the end when the possuk introduces the concept of smicha it says the gemara which is very much with this possuk because it sounds like the Bala Corbin's going to do Smicha and when he does Smicha he's going to get Kapara. The Nirtza L'eil Kapara. So, what's possible trying in the possible? The Nirtza L'eil Kapara means after you do what's coming in the next several possible. You're going to have to do the Shchita and the Kabala and the Loch and the Zrika. Only then it's going to be the Nirtza L'eil Kapara, but even that the more doesn't love. You know why? Because Smicha is an Avoda that's not Ma'akev. So, if a person never did the Smicha and all we did was the Shchita Kabala and Loch and Zrika, he would also be Zoche to the Nirtza L'eil Kapara. So, why does the Torah attach the idea of Nirtza L'eil Kapara to the Avoda of Smicha if Smicha is Mitzva it's Shura Mitzva, it's something that's not Ma'akev. The more of us that are walking the walk Kasha in Smacha and above, but the MS is although it's true the Smicha Mitzva the Avoda is not Ma'akev, but what the Yid did when he did the Smicha, which was he was Misvader, he did Tshuva, that's something that is Ma'akev. That's the Rambam we just learned. The Chaim Balai Chatois V'Ashamos B'Shum M'Vein Korbanos and Sh'Gigosen and Sh'Gagosen Ain Mischape L'Hen B'Korbanos Ad Sh'Yasu Tshuva V'Yisvadu V'Didvarim. That is something that's very Ma'akev. If you look at the Rambam, they say the Rambam's Mashma it's not Ma'akev in the Kashrus of the Korban, it's Ma'akev in the Kapara of the Gavra. Fire. But, the bottom line is it's Ma'akev the Nirtza L'eil Kapara and that was something that happened B'Shas the Smicha. So, could be the Nirtza L'eil Kapara was not so much Mitzva the Avoda of Smicha, it's more Mitzva the Tshuva that the Yid used to do when he did the Smicha. But again, you know, one of the Avodas when you learn a Sugya like all the Sugyas in Kodshim, right? Really this two-year stretch of Daf Yomi is trying to have a little bit of Amchasha, try to visualize because unfortunately Mipnei Chatoeinu Galinu May'Artzeinu V'Nischaknu May'Admasenu V'Einanachnu Y'Cholim, right? We can't bring Korbanos. So, for us it's very very hard for us to somehow create a proper visual in our imagination. But one thing I think is clear, the Yid, when he walked up to the Mukama Mikdash and he was taking his animal with him and he brought it El Pesach al Yomo the first thing he did before he handed over the keys to the valet, before he gave it to the kohen, he needed to go he had to do smicha and when he did smicha this was not heebie-jeebie at all. Maybe there's a little bit of an above our pay grade component to how it works, but he was misvader and he would say "Chatosi v'avosi v'p'sha'i." And he would say it with bakteiner and he would understand that the etzem I should be the one that's going on the mizbeach right now and it should be my dam and my basar and my emurim. But the Eibishter gave me this matana tova and he said that I could take this animal and this animal could be bimkomi. And he would take that ver and he would lean it and he would press it upon this animal right now acknowledging that he has the avera, acknowledging that the etzem it should be me but instead it's going to be this animal. The hergesh of the korban was something that was very very manifest in this avoda of smicha