Noah's Ascension

  בראשית כ וייבן נוח מזבח ליהוה וייקח מכול הבהמה הטהורה ומכול העוף הטהור ויעל עולות במזבח  כא וירח יהוה את ריח הניחוח ויאמר יהוה אל ליבו לא אוסיף לקלל עוד את האדמה בעבור האדם כי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו ולא-אוסיף עוד להכות את-כל-חי כאשר עשיתי  כב עוד כל-ימי הארץ זרע וקציר וקור וחום וקיץ וחורף ויום ולילה לא ישבותו.

Genesis 8:20 And Noah built an alter to God. He took from all of the pure animals and from all the pure birds and raised them as an ascension offering at the alter. (21) God smelled the pleasant fragrance and God said to his heart, I will not continue to destroy the earth because of man for his heart's inclination is bad from his youth. And I will not again destroy all life as I have done. (22)To the end of the days of the land, during seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will not cease.

The next time sacrifices are mentioned in the Tanach is during the story of Noah (Genesis 8:20-22). After the flood is over, Noah comes out of the ark and builds an alter (מזבח). He takes one of each of the pure animals and sacrifices them in/at the alter. The word for Sacrifice is olah עולה, to go up. The scent of the sacrifice (and possible Noah) go up to God, and in response God says to his heart that he will not destroy the world again in response to man's evil inclination.

This is a very different type of sacrifice then Cain and Hevel. Their sacrifice was a mincha (rest), and the result of the sacrifice was that God gazed upon Hevel. In this sacrifice, the goal of the offering was to ascend, and the result was that God made a change. One question I had was what exactly ascended? In the text, God smelled the "pleasant fragrance". My general assumption is that God is so far beyond us that we can't even begin to understand or explain God, but how does one make sense of God "smelling"?

I think the answer lies in a closer reading of the text. The word for pleasant odor is ריח הניחוח reach hanichoah. The first word can be read as רוח or spirit/wind, and the second is a variation on his name: נח Noah. When God smells (וירח), his spirit (רוח) meets with Noah's. This reading is that the spirit of Noah ascended up to God, God "spirited" Noah's "spirit", and it effected God's heart.

The Mincha sacrafice is a type of offering that results in a connection with God. It seems that the person offering the sacrifice brings God into the world. An ascension offering is more active and one that makes a change in the world. Here, the person goes into the spiritual world to make a change.

I'm excited to see how these types play out as we go further into our study, and what we can learn from how sacrifices were used biblically.