The opening chapters of the Book of Vayikra map out the world of sacrifices offered on the altar. Sacrifices are not one-dimensional. Some sacrifices respond to failure and repair. Others express gratitude. Others are brought simply because a person wants to move closer to G-d. After laying out the system, the Torah offers a neat summary [Vayikra 7:37]: “This is the law for the burnt offering, for the meal offering, and for the sin offering, and for the guilt offering, and for the investitures (miluim), and for the peace offering.” The Torah does this elsewhere. After the laws of kashrut, the Torah summarises [Vayikra 11:46-47]: “This is the law regarding animals, birds… to distinguish between the unclean and the clean, and between the animal that may be eaten and the animal that may not be eaten.” But then something curious happens. After the sacrifices are summarized, the Torah appends one more verse [Vayikra 7:38]: “[These are the laws] which G-d commanded Moshe on Mount Sinai, on the day He commanded the children of Israel to offer up their sacrifices to G-d in the Sinai Desert.” The medieval commentators are perplexed by this verse. The Ramban[1] asks why the Torah mentions that the sacrifices were commanded “on Mount Sinai”. Weren’t all of the commandments commanded on Mount Sinai? And why are both “Mount Sinai” and the “Sinai Desert” mentioned? Aren’t they in the same place? But I want to ask a more basic question: Why is this verse here at all? After kashrut, the Torah doesn’t add: “…which G-d commanded Moshe on Mount Sinai, on the day He told Israel not to eat cheeseburgers in the desert.” Why does sacrificial law get this extra line and no other topic does?

Our answer starts with a clue the Ramban himself brings. He points to a verse about the daily Continual Offering (Korban Tamid), described as something that was offered [Bemidbar 28:7] “at Mount Sinai”. Put Ramban on hold for a moment and bring in the Hizkuni[2], who makes a striking claim. The daily Tamid, he says, was seeded by an earlier sacrifice offered at the foot of Sinai even before the Torah was given [Shemot 24:5]: “Moshe sent forth the young men of the Children of Israel and they offered burnt........

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