The Pauses Between Passages Let Moses Stop and Reflect

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 445:4

"And if his offering is from the flock" (Leviticus 1:10). This adds to the earlier subject. And why was there a break? To give Moses a pause to contemplate between one passage and another, and between one matter and another. And are these things not a matter of all the more so? If Moses, who comprehended by the Holy Spirit and heard continually by the Holy Spirit, needed to contemplate between one passage and another and between one matter and another, then how much more so an ordinary person learning from an ordinary person. Where is the place of the slaughterings? The most holy offerings are slaughtered in the north. Of the burnt offering it is written, "And he shall slaughter it on the side of the altar northward" (Leviticus 1:11). We have found this regarding the offspring of the flock; regarding the offspring of the herd, from where do we derive it? The verse says, "And if from the flock" — the letter vav adds to the earlier subject, and let the upper case learn from the lower.

Themes