כלי יקר — שמן זית זך כתית למאור

Q — Why does the Torah specify that the *first* drop of oil (כתית) goes to the menorah, while only later drops (regular טחינה) go to menachot — what moral order is hidden in this priority?

A — Kli Yakar derives a piercing rebuke. Many people give their *best* — the כתית, the first drop — to material pursuits ('חומר לאכול ולשתות ויתר תענוגות בני האדם') and offer only the leftover and rejected to the spiritual ('נר אלהים נשמת אדם'). That is the way of Kayin, whose offering was deficient. The correct order is the way of Hevel — 'מבכורות צאנו ומחלביהן' — first and best for what is eternal. The Torah encodes this priority in the very physics of the menorah's oil: the first drop, for 'נר תמיד' (an eternal light), comes before the oil that goes to menachot (food for kohanim — a temporal good).