One of the sacrificial laws is the law of notar (“leftovers”). According to this law, a sacrifice that is not consumed within the allotted time period can no longer be eaten and must be burned. The time allotted to eat a sacrifice differs from one sacrifice to another. While the Shelamim sacrifices (Peace offerings) can be eaten on the day that they are brought, plus an additional night and day (Leviticus 7:17), the Todah (Thanksgiving) sacrifice can be eaten only on the day of the sacrifice and the following night (Leviticus 7:16). The law of notar is not merely an expiry date, rather it clarifies the obligation to eat all the meat of the sacrifice without leaving leftovers, and obligates someone who does leave leftovers to burn the remainder after the time for eating has concluded.
These three elements – the obligation to eat the sacrifice at a specific time, the requirement to burn the leftovers and the prohibition against eating it after the allotted time, are elements that complement each other. The end result is that the celebration related to the sacrifice must take place, that it must take place soon after the sacrifice is brought and that it cannot be postponed. No frugality and no attempt to save for later will help, since the piece of sacrificial meat must be eaten by a certain time, and the clock is ticking.
We find a similar idea in the case of burning leaven on the eve of Passover. As long as the time to burn the leaven has not yet arrived, it is permissible to eat bread, cakes, and so forth. It would be forbidden to wantonly destroy such foods before the time, yet there is commandment to destroy them when the moment of prohibition arrives. The connection between the prohibition against leaven and the laws of notar leads Rabbi Yehudah to conclude that leaven must be destroyed by burning it, just as notar must be destroyed by burning the leftover meat (TB Pesahim 28a).
The analogy suggested by Rabbi Yehudah can be extended to the three elements that are found regarding the sacrificial laws. First, the most important value: The sanctity of eating. Just as eating the meat of the sacrifice is an obligatory commandment that raises the spiritual level of the individual who fulfills it, eating bread should do the same. It is well-known that Jewish tradition views bread as holy. A double portion of bread serves as the centerpiece of our Shabbat meals. The Grace After the Meal blessing that we recite after bread is the most important of all of our blessings on food. The very existence of bread is an expression of the human ability to play a role in completing the act of Creation. Still, when the moment arrives on the eve of Passover when bread becomes forbidden, its status changes and in an instant it shifts from being holy to being tainted and forbidden.
The common principle of the law of notar and the law of destroying leaven places a number of basic human existential experiences under the spotlight.
First of all, it highlights a common attitude towards leftovers, to unnecessary objects we own whose time has passed. Most of us suffer from an inability to rid ourselves of things we own that served us well for an extended period of time, but are no longer functional. This failing ruins for us the positive experience that we had with this object over the years, as it makes us forget how useful it was in its time, now that it takes up room under piles of dust. It reminds us of times past when our body size was different, when different colors and styles were in fashion; it reminds us of foods that we enjoyed that are no longer on the menu, of changes in our own tastes. All of these things limit us in our ability to truly express appreciation. The ability to close one chapter in life and begin another one, to close the circle so that we can open a new one, are buried here. We need to be able to say, “the time has come.”
There is a different experience related to the passing of time, and that is the sense of lost opportunity. The fact that a sacrifice or that our bread become irrelevant overnight – a distant and repressed memory – leaves a person amazed at the way time passes. These things prove to us that everything we know today will ultimately pass from this world. This feeling is often accompanied by a sense of missed opportunity. In the cases of the sacrifice and the leaven, the missed opportunity was neglecting to eat when we still could. We experience that sense in our everyday lives, as well, like when we open the refrigerator and discover something that would have been good to eat in its time, but now is moldy because it was saved for later. This feeling also exists in relation to other existential experiences. Leaven is a model of a commandment where we must take advantage of what we have at the proper time.
In closing, the most important concept to be gleaned from all of this is the sanctity of time. From a retrospective viewpoint, time and essence are made holy. The realization that there are opportunities to engage in quality activities to fill the present, but that those opportunities will disappear at some point in the future, creates what we call “the sanctity of time.” Time is sacred because it contains opportunities unique to that moment that will dissipate when the moment passes. This concept of sacred time serves as a mirror image for our very lives, that are made holy by the fact that in time they will come to an end. The individual who knows to take advantage of the time he has without leaving any over, who makes sure not to miss his opportunities, who fills his days with appropriate content – that is the person who succeeds in building a Temple within time.
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I write these words in memory of my father, Shalom Kahane of blessed memory, who passed away on Shabbat HaGadol 5756. He taught us to take advantage of every minute and to be careful in all of our actions. In the ethical will that he left us he described “life values and behaviors that are very important to me.” The first one mentioned was “Uncompromising punctuality based on an understanding of the value of time in Judaism.” Another that he included was “Making good use of one’s time. I abhor wasting time. Time is the greatest of God’s gifts to man – it is the definition of life itself.”