Zevachim – “Sacrifices” – The Mind of Dan Perlman

Zevachim – “Sacrifices” – God’s Grill

First off, we are starting a new book of the Talmud, the fifth of six, consisting of eleven tractates, focused on Temple services. Not the temple down road that you go to on Friday nights when you don’t have anything better to do, but the big one that was destroyed, twice, in Jerusalem. It’s a prescription for the future, though my bet is the Babylonian rabbis who compiled the Talmud would not have predicted that 1600 years later the Third Temple would not yet have been rebuilt. This first tractate of the book is focused on the rituals and conditions surrounding animal sacrifices in the Temple, primarily based on the laws spelled out in Leviticus. This is a long one, buckle in – fourteen chapters, a hundred and one pages! Let’s start with noting that the idea of sacrifices seems so out of place in modern society, and even, thinking about it, why would burning a cow, goat, sheep, or bird, be somehow considered a holy act? Talmudic scholars point to not the act itself, but what it represents, the giving up of something material, something valuable, in a way that, somewhat literally, sends its essence to the heavens and draws us closer to God. And the rules surrounding the sacrifices are intended to force those offering them to be mindful of what they are doing, that it’s not just an empty ritual.
9/16/25, Chapter 1, Page 2 – As the Talmud often does, we plunge right into a conundrum. An animal has been brought for sacrifice. It meets all the various physical qualifications – which I’m assuming we’ll get into over the coming pages. But, it lacks one thing. It doesn’t fulfill the obligation of being a material sacrifice for the animal’s owner. Perhaps it’s an unwanted animal, or he’s so wealthy he doesn’t care, or whatever the reason is. The animal is considered unsuitable for sacrifice despite all other considerations, because its owner is neither mindful, nor even invested, in its worth as an offering.
9/17/25, Page 3 – Somehow – though perhaps not a surprise in such a patriarchal society – we’ve gone from sacrificing cows to divorcing women. A long discussion over various situations where a bill of divorce was written for one woman, but a man tries to use it for another woman – he has two wives and changes his mind about which to get rid of, a friend has a wife of the same name an wants to use the bill, etc. To their credit, I suppose, the rabbis come down on the woman’s side – unless a bill of divorce was written specifically for her and given to her husband, it may not be used in any other circumstance.
9/18/25, Page 4 – I know I, at least, when the Talmud talks about offering up a burnt sacrifice to God on the altar, envision throwing this carcass onto a roaring fire, letting it be consumed into ashes and smoke. After, of course, sprinkling its blood all around the altar, a must for the sacrificially aware set, and only to be performed by a Temple priest – others performing the ritual are to be put to death. But that vision is interrupted by the reminder that “the meat of the sacrifice is to be consumed on the same day” – the priests and whomever is offering the sacrifice are supposed to sit down and eat the cow, goat, or sheep, right there, on the spot. I also find myself wondering just how many such sacrifices can be made in a day – after all, there’s only so much barbecue that the priests are going to want to consume.
9/19/25, Page 5 – Tangent time. Reish Lakish, a talmudic scholar I don’t recall us running into before, offers up the question about whether or not all these sacrifices are actually appreciated by God, and if not, why should we be doing them? First, practically heresy in the eyes of the other sages, but second, they make a big point of that he’s lying on his stomach in the study hall while offering his opinions, a less than respectful posture. Who is this guy? It turns out he was a gladiator turned bandit, whom Rabbi Yochanan ran into and offered his sister’s hand in marriage to this big strapping hunk, in exchange for him giving up his life of crime and becoming a Torah scholar. I suspect there’s more to the story than that!
9/20/25, Page 6 – We hit one of those apparent contradictions in the Talmud. In Jewish tradition, sons do not inherit the sins of their fathers. However, they do inherit their debts and liabilities, along with the positive side of assets. If a man has sinned, his sons wouldn’t be responsible for making up for that. However, if he has designated a sacrifice, be it a burnt offering or monetary, along with any fines, the sons inherit the responsibility for carrying out that sacrifice, along with any penalties that have been accrued, because the sacrifice is considered a debt owed to God.
9/21/25, Page 7 – What are the big differences between a sin offering and a burnt offering – after all, both involve sacrificing an animal to the flames? A sin offering is for violating a negative mitzvah – something you are forbidden from doing, and a sacrifice must be made for each act. A burnt offering is for violating a positive mitzvah – something you are asked to do to make the world better, but didn’t – a sacrifice can be made on more than one act at a time, for example, atoning for all the missed opportunities of the week.
9/22/25, Page 8 – While sin offerings have some very specific timing requirements, and a lot of sprinkling of blood, burnt offerings, which involve bringing an animal to be roasted, and then eaten by the priests, can be brought, well, anytime. You know, dinner… lunch… breakfast… today… tomorrow… whenever it strikes you to bring food for God to not eat and leave for the priests to do so.
9/23/25, Page 9 – Those Temple priests really do like their feasts. If someone has offered an animal for a sacrifice for a specific holiday where the priests will get to eat it, and it hasn’t yet been sacrificed… I guess there were too many or something, that’s not clear… it can be sacrificed for a different holiday, as long as the second holiday is also one where the priests get to eat the meat. It cannot, opine the holy ones, be sacrificed for a holiday where they don’t get to sit down to dine.
9/24/25, Page 10 – I realize that the Talmudic rabbis were arguing fine points of law over deviations from sin and burnt offerings, but what keeps sticking with me is how often they make sure to tack on at least a brief discussion of whether or not the holy folk who tend the Temple still get to eat the meat or not. Here, the discussion is over whether if the purpose sacrifice is changed, the rituals are deviated from, or even, if the animal was sacrificed with idolatrous purposes in mind… they still come back to… do we get to eat it?
9/25/25, Page 11 – At first, I was discomfited by the opening of today’s page, as it discussed the state of sacrificial animals – noting that sin offerings, unlike, guilt or burnt offerings, are offered up… alive. It had me picturing them throwing an animal still mooing onto the grill. But no, as I thought about it, I realized that for burnt offerings the animals were slaughtered outside the Temple itself, and then just the meat is placed on the altar’s fires, whereas the sin offerings have to be slaughtered on the spot as there’s that whole collecting and sprinkling of blood that we read about so long ago. Which, in truth, still puts me on edge.
9/26/25, Page 12 – There are certain times of the day, assert most of the rabbis, when things like lamp-lighting, incense burning, and sacrifices, are to be performed. The question arises as to whether one could slaughter an animal during the day to prepare it for a sacrifice after sundown, on the eve of a holiday. Rabbi ben Beitera asserts yes, claiming that even if not standard, just as you can burn incense all day long, you can slaughter all day long. First off, eww. Second off, oh, he’s one of those… incense burning all day long. Thankfully the majority rule goes for time limitations of late afternoon at the earliest… for both slaughtering and incense burning.
9/27/25, Page 13 – We’re on another eww page. The entire discussion more or less comes down to “who do we get to punish” for improper collection and/or sprinkling of sacrificial blood. Where and when was it collected, who collected it, how did they deliver it to the Temple, who in the Temple handled it, who, how, and when was it sprinkled on or around the altar. It still all comes down to wanting to lay the blame on a single individual for when this part of the sacrifice isn’t up to snuff, so to speak.
9/28/25, Page 14 – There are, if you recall, four steps involved in sin offerings – (1) slaughtering the animal, (2) collecting its blood, (3) conveying its blood to the altar, (4) sprinkling the blood on the altar. Only the last has a specification that it be done by a Temple priest. The slaughtering and collecting was almost always performed by laymen. An argument arises around step 3, whether the actual transport into the sacred parts of the Temple should be done by a priest, and what if that priest has bad intentions, or is drunk, or some other issue? I’d go further – how do you even know that priest, or non-priest, is delivering blood that was just collected from a just slaughtered animal? After all, the high priests inside are reliant on the good intentions of those outside the chambers.
9/29/25, Page 15 – With all the elaborate steps and the focus on the who, the how, the where, of blood collecting for altar sprinkling, you’d think that one little misstep and it’s all over. Perhaps a new sacrifice. Perhaps sacrifice the person who screwed up. But no. The end justifies the means here. If an unfit person performed any part of the ritual up to and including the act of sprinkling, or someone slipped and the blood got all over the floor, the sages decide that they can just walk the container back to where the sacrifice was performed (even if blood had to be scooped up off the floor), and the conveying process just re-performed correctly, with a fit person.
9/30/25, Chapter 2, Page 16 – Basically – during this period without a Temple, an instruction to maintain standards of sacrifices and priestly behavior at private altars.
10/1/25, Page 17 – Priests in the Temple had specific vestments they were supposed to wear while performing their duties. If they were not correctly dressed, they were not allowed to perform those tasks. Clothes make the priest.
10/2/25, Page 18 – They’re really going to town on the dress right theme. Today the rabbis tackle not just whether the Temple priests are wearing the correct, official uniform of the priesthood, but if it’s sized right, if they’re using a belt to hold up trousers, if the hem of their robe is too long or too short, if there’s any fraying of the material, if it’s clean or not, and more. The priests are, they note, after all, not just representatives of the Temple to us, but also to God, and they should dress the part.
10/3/25, Page 19 – Yesterday we read about the priests not using a belt or sash to hold their robe in place. This leads to a convoluted discussion as Talmudic law requires there be “nothing” between the priests body and his vestments. Some interpret this to include air space and that the robe should be form-fitting. This in turn leads to discussions about bathing so that there is no dirt on the skin, shaving so that there is no hair (which gets into a huge argument because Ashkenazi Judaism forbade shaving body hair while Sephardic Judaism practically required it, and what to do about gaps, like the armpits and groin?
10/4/25, Page 20 – Most of today’s page is on the priests who are about to perform a sacrifice sanctifying, i.e., washing their hands and feet before doing so. There’s a whole procedure, and questions on timing – particularly whether they can wash the night before and not have to do it again in the morning, or use water left out for the night to do so in the morning. Then they pivot to discussing the fine points of positioning a bull or other animal or bird for slaughtering in order to not get too bloody. Just throwing it out there – I’m willing to bet that none of these Talmudic rabbis ever slaughtered an animal themselves and haven’t a clue what they’re talking about.
10/5/25, Page 21 – We’re still on the washing of the hands and feet. While immersion in a ritual bath, a mikveh, is apparently sufficient to sanctify and cleanse one’s body, it is not for a priest when it comes to their hands and feet. Why? Because, well, other people have immersed in the bath. No, the hands and feet must be washed in drawn, running water, that is poured from a (preferably copper) vessel into a basin that only the priest uses for their hand and foot sanctification.
10/6/25, Page 22 – Impure priests, it ought not to even need to be said, but they say it anyway, are unfit for Temple service. I do like that they use the metaphorical “uncircumcised at heart” to indicate someone who isn’t a true believer. Also, red gnats are a deal breaker in water used for sanctification.
10/7/25, Page 23 – Although most of today’s page goes into details about the impurity contracted by contact with a “creeping animal”, I was struck by a tangent… of course. If sacrificing a cow, or goat, or sheep, or even a lamb, would be onerous for your family, or because, perhaps, you live solo, or a childless couple, you can go… halfsies… on a sacrificial animal with a neighbor who’s in a similar situation and basically make a co-sacrifice. This is specifically for general burnt offerings, not for sin sacrifices… though, perhaps, if you and your neighbor sinned together?
10/8/25, Page 24 – A priest offering a sacrifice must be barefoot and in contact with the ground, or at least a stone tile sitting on the ground. No interposition of other materials, no standing on a stepstool. And the collection and sprinkling of blood must be done with the fingers of his right hand. Everything else is disqualifying, and in some cases, punishable by… you guessed it… death! Yay capital punishment for not doing rituals right!
10/9/25, Page 25 – Rules of blood collecting: You must collect all the blood from the sacrificed bull; you must not let any of it touch the floor; you must collect it with your right hand. The Torah is quite clear on all of this. Except, the rabbis note, it’s not, it’s a confused phrasing of all of the above, and they actually have a debate over whether to change the wording of the Torah to make it more clear. After all, they note, it would only require changing one letter in the entire section. Basically, they’re suggesting that God and Moses needed a proofreader.
10/10/25, Page 26 – Slaughtering an animal is a gruesome business. That’s pretty much a given. I’ve witnessed it both on a farm and in a slaughterhouse. But the discussion here turns my stomach more than that, as the council discusses the various positions of an animal being slaughtered’s legs in regard to Temple boundaries, being hacked off or not, and then on to bizarre situations like “what if the priest doing the slaughtering levitates while doing so?” I swear, sometimes I’m not sure if these guys were stoned or just RFK, Jr. level of being in their own fantasy world.
10/11/25, Page 27 – Today is all about the hut ha-sikra, the thin red line. I had no idea, I don’t remember reading about it in the design of the Temple’s altar, but apparently there is a red line demarcating an upper and lower section of the altar. Certain sacrifices involved blood sprinkling above, certain ones below, and sprinkling in the wrong section not only ran the risk of negating certain types of sacrifices, but definitely meant the meat that the blood was from wasn’t permitted to be eaten by the priests. You can imagine they were careful about their blood sprinkling.
10/12/25, Page 28 – How things change in terms of gastronomic tastes. An argument arises over the permissibility of sacrificing, or burning, or eating, the skin of the tail of a sacrificial animal. As the skin of the tail is “not normally eaten”, it’s quite the debate between those who insist it’s a delicacy and those who opine it’s inedible. Which leads to a large number of the debaters agreeing that it’s not like the meat of the tail, which no one would eat anyway. Oh, you silly men, you’re missing out on one of the best cuts!
10/13/25, Page 29 – As the sages continue discussing the ins and outs of maintaining purity, a question arises in my mind. How does a mikveh, the ritual immersion pool, remain pure as person after person plops their impure body into it? After all, it’s a stagnant pool made up of a mix of naturally collected water (lake, river, pond, rain…) and tap water. You can add all the swimming pool chemicals you want, but I’ve worked around a swimming pool before, and, it’s not always so clean. Apparently, however, it’s because of the naturally collected portion of the water – a divine gift from God, imparting divinity to the rest of it in perpetuity. Yeah… no.
10/14/25, Page 30 – In the midst of a discussion over mixed intentions for a sacrifice (generally not allowed), two of the rabbis get into it over one of our favorite measurements from way back… the “olive bulk”. Now, I could almost get it if they were arguing over whether it meant a small olive like a Niçoise versus a large olive like a Castelvetrano, but no, they are both too stubborn to explore olive varietals, and clearly each just have a particular size in mind and aren’t going to budge.
10/15/25, Page 31 – What if?… continuing from yesterday, two people decide to split an olive bulk’s worth of sacrificial meat? Given that their intent is still to make use of an olive bulk volume, the sages come down on the side that they’re both guilty of eating the entire amount. Also, if you give a scrap that is an olive bulk’s worth or more to your dog, it renders the whole sacrifice invalid because it’s a non-sacred intention. I know many dog owners who would highly disagree.
10/16/25, Chapter 3, Page 32 – Today’s discussion is focused on minor slips in the process of slaughtering an animal for sacrifice, and the collecting of its blood. The priest, perhaps, does everything correctly, and has the blood in a vessel in his right hand, but momentarily, for whatever reason, switches the vessel to his left hand and then back. A non-priest momentarily enters the area of slaughter, but then quickly backs out before touching anything. That sort of occurrence. In general, the rabbis come down on the side of that if it was not intentional to perform actions that aren’t sacred, it’s all okay. That’s a switch from a lot of their decisions, but a sane one.
10/17/25, Page 33 – The discussion from yesterday leads into the main theme of this chapter – when a ritually impure person brings a sacrifice to the Temple in order to appease God and cure their impurity (lepers are used as an example), where and how do they participate in the sacrifice, since they’re not allowed inside in their state of impurity. The argument turns to whether or not they can reach one hand through the gate to touch the animal before it is sacrificed and then withdraw it, or the other hand, or their head, or their foot… I’m not sure if this is Twister or the Hokey-Pokey.
10/18/25, Page 34 – What if a penitent brings an extra sacrificial animal that is not pure or not kosher? As long as he’s sacrificing a proper animal, why would anyone care if he also sacrifices more? Well, they do. And the discussion ranges around not so much that the impure or non-kosher animal might taint the process, as one might think, but that the person is adding something that wasn’t requested. The argument boils down to whether someone can choose to extend a rabbinic rule. Some of the rabbis don’t mind, others seem to see it as a usurpation of their role.
10/19/25, Page 35 – We’re getting blatantly metaphysical on today’s page. As the priests collect the blood of the various sacrificial animals into vessels and then trot to the altar to sprinkle blood in the appropriate manner, we are treated to the image of a floor awash in both spilled and seeping blood. The rabbis admonish the priests (centuries’ past when they actually performed these rites) to not wade through the pools of blood which would contaminate the blood they are carrying. And why? Because the properly collected blood in the vessels still contains the animals’ souls, while blood on the floor is now soulless. Who knew a soul could be contained in a cup? It’s worth noting that this world view is part of how the “blood of Christ” in a chalice developed in Christianity.
10/20/25, Page 36 – Back to the priests eating the meat from the sacrifice. We couldn’t stray from that part for too long. As part of the rules, the meat must be consumed the same day as the sacrifice, nothing can be left over and/or stored for the next day. This, undoubtedly, is the origin of Jewish mothers insisting that everyone take a tupper-ful of food home when they leave, so that she can be sure her own kitchen doesn’t have leftovers.
10/21/25, Chapter 4, Page 37 – This new chapter focuses on the opinions of Beit Shammai, the House of Shammai, one of the leading rabbis of the time – and almost always in opposition to Beit Hillel, Hillel almost always taking a contrary view. By the way, we have Hillel Houses all over the world on university campuses, not Shammai Houses, so you know who ended up on top. Through a series of long arguments about the proper way and number of times to apply blood to the altar we basically learn on today’s page that sprinkling and pouring are not the same thing, and that one, two, three, and four are not the same number.
10/22/25, Page 38 – I’m going to paraphrase into modern terms a discussion among the Shammai rabbis to illustrate what it is one wades through in the Talmud. Person 1: “The building plans for this building don’t specify it’s shape, but the word wall is used five times in the instructions, and once it’s used in the plural, so I’m pretty sure we have to build at least a six-walled structure.” Person 2: “The time it’s used in the plural is just to introduce the concept of a building with walls, and once it’s used really to indicate that the structure must have a sort of roof, so we’re just left with the word wall being used three times, so this needs to be an open, three-side shed, obviously.” These are the arguments being posed to interpret building plans (for a sukkah), that we’re supposed to give great weight and credence to.
10/23/25, Page 39 – Today’s page is a detailed breakdown of where and how blood is to be sprinkled in various places over the course of its journey from the slaughtering in the courtyard on through successively holier passages until reaching the holiest, the altar. Each step takes more and more care and detail, which is mandated, according to the rabbi, because the instructions are repeated twice, indicating how important these steps were to the original authors. It doesn’t seem to occur to the rabbis that the repetition might just be lack of editing on a cobbled together instruction manual.
10/24/25, Page 40 – The argument on today’s page feels a bit superfluous (then again, many of these do). The rabbis argue over the sprinkling of blood on the corners of the Tent of Meeting, and on the curtain at the entryway to the altar in said Tent of Meeting. The thing is, the Tent of Meeting was the temporary, portable sanctuary created by Moses and Co. long, long before the building of the Temple. So I’m not clear why they’re arguing over the details of activities in a temporary place that had, by then, been replaced by a permanent structure (which, further, had already been destroyed). Are they advocating the return of the Tent?
10/25/25, Page 41 – A discussion ensues over different Torah passages on burnt offerings. Some are very specific, like detailing that the diaphragm and kidneys of a goat or bull be offered up on the altar itself (while the rest of the animal is roasted elsewhere – to be eaten by the priests), but others don’t specify the particular organs to be offered on the altar. The argument is over whether that means the whole animal must be offered or just the same diaphragm and kidneys. In general, the sages come down on the latter side – feeling that the specifications in the other passages can be extended to those that don’t specify. That, or they don’t want to lose their dinner.
10/26/25, Page 42 – We’re into the nitty gritty of timing and pacing of blood spattering at a level that would tax Gil Grissom’s best blood spatter analysis abilities. On Yom Kippur there are, count them, 42 blood sprinklings to be done for various facets of the holiday, in and around the altar and it’s curtains, but there are also 11 performed to compensate for “unwitting” sins by the priests and another 11 for the same for the community. That’s 64 blood spatter patterns in one room. Good luck CSI team! Apparently, btw, you can now buy blood spatter decals to decorate your home with.
10/27/25, Page 43 – An interesting argument during the course of a discussion on how the intentions of the priest performing a sacrifice can make the sacrifice invalid. The argument, however, is over how to, well, rescue the sacrifice that’s been declared invalid, with one side of the argument claiming that by another priest, with proper intentions, burning a certain portion of the sacrifice in fire will revalidate it, while others claim that fire is not an acceptable purification process since it destroys the object being purified rather than leaving it whole, the way water does in a mikveh (ritual bath).
10/28/25, Page 44 – Seriously, this whole tractate comes down to the rabbis, presumably at the behest of the Temple priests, figuring out how to get the most meat from sacrifices onto the priests’ dinner plates while still fulfilling the letter of the sacrificial laws and not offending God. Today’s page is mostly on how to accomplish that with bird sacrifices, and I swear, they come just this short of actually offering a recipe for roasting poultry.
10/29/25, Page 45 – Backing up my opinion on Temple priests and meat off the grill is today’s discussion on whether or not gentiles can offer sacrifices on the altar. Yes, they can, as long as they meet the same standards for purity, because any sacrifice is considered a gift to God. However, since it’s not an obligatory sacrifice, and just a gift, all the rules about what portions, the sanctity of the meat, and how much the priests can eat are out the window – they can pretty much eat whatever and however much they want.
10/30/25, Page 46 – It is not enough to not have incorrect intentions when offering a sacrifice, but one must have correct intentions. Those correct intentions aren’t really up to you, the rabbis have decided on the only appropriate intentions for offering a sacrifice. Luckily, they’re pretty broad categories – for the sake of the offering itself, for the sake of the offeror, for the sake of God, for the sake of the fires, for the sake of the aroma, and for the sake of pleasing (presumably, though not specified, God), and a seventh tacked on, for the sake of sin. No mention of Pete.
10/31/25, Chapter 5, Page 47 – Slaughtering of all offerings and collection of all blood is to be done in the north courtyard of the Temple. Even the offerings from Nazerites and lepers, in case you were concerned.
11/1/25, Page 48 – So it turns out that the rule about slaughtering sacrifices in the north courtyard is all made up. The only sacrifice that is specified to be done there in the Torah is the sin sacrifice for the day of Yom Kippur, ostensibly our holiest holiday for such things. From that, it’s all the rabbinic council deciding that if the holiest holiday’s sacrifices are done there, then all the rest ought to be by some principle of derivation. Which to me, seems a big stretch.
11/2/25, Page 49 – At the end of yesterday’s page and leading into today’s is a note that while the rabbis have determined, by derivation, that sin sacrifices are supposed to be done in the north courtyard of the Temple, there’s nothing actually prohibiting them from being done elsewhere. Which leads into a discussion over whether the lesser burnt offering sacrifices have any restrictions on where they are to be performed, to which the majority lean towards “no”, those animals can be slaughtered and their blood collected, anywhere – though, it wouldn’t hurt to do it in the north courtyard, just in case, you know?
11/3/25, Page 50 – Having decided that sin and guilt offerings must start with slaughtering the animal in the north courtyard, along with all the associated blood collecting and transporting, the rabbis turn to burnt and peace offerings. Once again, they decide to extend the specifics of the guilt offerings to these, more or less, “just because”. This is how we end up with situations that turn into urban legends, like the Pot Roast Principle.
11/4/25, Page 51 – One might be tempted to wonder just what the purpose of all these discussions the Talmudic rabbis were having on deriving the details of sacrificial ritual was. After all, by their time, the Temple was long gone, and ritual sacrifice, even if the Temple were to be rebuilt, was likely gone as well. Today’s page dives into the idea of logical derivation of rules and practices, and opines that using the sacrificial ones is simply a tool to demonstrate the process. It feels a little self-justificatory – a sort of “see, this is how it could logically be done, so therefore it must be the right way to do it”.
11/5/25, Page 52 – Back to the details. An entire page dedicated to what to do with the remaining blood after you’ve sprinkled the four corners of the inner altar. It can’t just be thrown out. Logically, it is decided, it must somehow be poured around the altar. But, the inner altar has no base. I’m not clear as to how it has no base, other than a discussion that there’s an external altar that has a ledge around it for walking, and it is decided that that’s where the remaining blood should be poured. I’m still trying to picture an inner altar with no similar ledge and base to walk around.
11/6/25, Page 53 – Today’s argument offers two different methods for the sprinkling of blood on the altar. On one side, it is suggested that the priest stand at one end of the altar and with his right forefinger and thumb, flick or dab blood onto each of the two corners at that end, then move to the other end and repeat. On the other side, it is suggested that the priest use the same finger and basically draw a line that goes around both corners close to him, and then continue around, creating, more or less, a continuous line around the altar. Although the first seems like it fits the idea of sprinkling closer, the argument is decided in favor of the line drawing – to not miss any of the altar.
11/7/25, Page 54 – An intricate discussion of how the Temple Mount was selected that involves the biblical (Book of Joshua) description of the borders of each of the twelve tribes, leading to the land given to the tribe of Benjamin being the highest altitude, but a decision to place the Temple on the second highest hill in the area, so as not to, I guess, challenge God on the highest peak. There are also long-winded passages about Benjamin himself and his wolfen nature, which back in the 12th century led Rabbeinu Ephraim ben Shimshon, one of the Tosafists (Talmud commenters) to conclude that Benjamin was a werewolf.
11/8/25, Page 55 – It’s already been made clear that the Temple priests get to eat what doesn’t get burnt from a sacrificial offering. Most of it, they are required to eat “in a sacred place”, which is generally felt to be within Temple grounds. In the case of voluntary “peace” offerings, two portions of sacrifices are given to the priests via Leviticus, the “the breast of waving and the thigh of heaving”, which they can eat anywhere. The details of the waving and heaving are irrelevant, I just like the names.
11/9/25, Page 56 – After much arguing over the interpretation of a passage on the timing of slaughter, sacrifice, and subsequent eating, it is determined that the first two must occur on the same day, the third must happen within a period of “two days and one night”, i.e, same day or day after before sundown.
11/10/25, Page 57 – These priests really don’t want to share their food. Although, the sages admit, that there is no specification that certain sacrifices, like peace offerings, are only to be eaten by the priests, since the sacrifices are talked about in the same general section of the Torah as burnt offerings that are specifically allotted to the priests, well then, obviously God must have meant for the peace offerings to only be eaten by the priests too.
11/11/25, Chapter 6, Page 58 – It’s the battle of the Yoseis. Rabbi Yosei, son of Halafta, maintains that since the altar itself is located in the northern part of the courtyard, you could just save time and effort and slaughter the animal right on the altar, and that would pretty much take care of all the blood sprinkling in one shot. Rabbi Yosei, son of Yehuda, says the altar is located at the midpoint, so only half of it is in the north, and unless you were really careful with placement, slaughtering on the altar would be partially out of the northern courtyard, and therefore invalid. I’d just point out that slaughter on the altar would be really messy.
11/12/25, Page 59 – The maths aren’t mathing, as some are wont to say. Some rabbis argue that the Temple altar simply wasn’t big enough to account for all the sacrifices being listed, and it couldn’t be possible. The rebuttal points out that King Solomon is noted in the Torah for having offered some 142,000 sacrifices on Moses’ original, small altar, and that when he had the Temple built, it was built to be significantly larger (24 cubits per side versus the original at 10 cubits per side), and was therefore more than sufficient to the task. I’m just wondering, in those pre-Temple days, who was eating the meat of 120,000 sheep and 22,000 cows.
11/13/25, Page 60 – The rabbis continue arguing over the size of the altar in the Temple and its suitability for the number of sacrifices supposedly held. They also continue the argument over whether sacrifices where the slaughter is performed on the altar are valid – the argument now is that the blood sprinkling just happens, and isn’t done by a human’s hand versus, the slaughter was done by a human’s hand, therefore it caused the sprinkling. Then they argue over whether any of this is relevant “today” (being 1500 years ago).
11/14/25, Page 61 – We discover that the original altar, made of copper, and built in the time of Moses, had a continuous divine flame. When Solomon built a replacement altar of stone, the divine flame departed, and only returned sporadically, as if to visit. I find it interesting that the Talmudic sages don’t question why this is so, and simply state it as a given. Perhaps stone was the wrong material? Perhaps replacing Moses’ altar wasn’t divine will?
11/15/25, Page 62 – The First Temple was built in 960BCE and destroyed in 586BCE. When it came time to build the Second Temple in 516BCE, it was built over the foundations of the First, but built larger, including the altar, as we’ve already seen. It was later destroyed in 70CE, six centuries later The argument today is over the expansion. Some argue that it was justified not just because a bigger temple was needed, but because there are biblical verses supporting that. Others argue that there are other biblical verses that show it should have been rebuilt the same, and that’s why it was once again destroyed. These guys will argue about anything, and try to justify it with cherry-picked bible verses. Sound familiar?
11/16/25, Page 63 – We’re back to the Temple priests and their eating habits. In fact, despite claims that this tractate, Zevachim, is all about Temple service, we’re 63 pages in and I’d venture that 95% of it is either about where and how to kill animals, sprinkle their blood, and then eat. Today we’re on to the shewbread, the stacks of rounds that are placed on the table near the altar each week. Today we’re informed that each Sabbath, the bread is… eaten by the priests, after making sure there’s no frankincense in contact with it. I assume because said dried tree resin is more medicinal than edible. You knew frankincense was dried tree resin, right?
11/17/25, Page 64 – If you’re squeamish, just stop reading today’s portion, now. We’re on to bird sacrifices, and a gruesome description of how the priests used one hand to hold a bird, trapped, with its wings between two fingers and legs between two others (had to be a rather small bird if you think about it), and then using the other hand to snap its neck, then using their thumbnail to slit its throat and remove the head, the using the body as the vessel to sprinkle blood around the altar, then tearing the bird in half lengthwise, putting some parts on the altar to burn… cook… and the remaining bits were flung to a heap, 30 cubits (45 feet) away. Just… ick.
11/18/25, Page 65 – As we continue with bird sacrifice, the Talmudic sages ponder why the text specifies that a priest must bring the bird to the altar for sacrifice. No non-priests allowed. But, as some note, no one but the priests are allowed into the altar chambers or to approach the altar, so why the specification, given that it’s not specified in regard to larger animals. They muse that perhaps non-priests had been allowed to help carry larger animals under the guidance of a priest, despite the prohibition. Unlikely that we’ll ever know one way or the other for sure.
11/19/25, Chapter 7, Page 66 – The rules around bird sacrifice continue. In the case of a “burnt offering”, the head must be completely removed, in the case of a “sin offering”, it is to be left attached. Today’s argument is over whether in the case of a sin offering, the priest removes the head completely, the sin offering is no longer valid. It’s quite the argument, with both sides quoting totally unrelated situations where the words for “it” and “removed” have been used in the Torah. And, of course, neither side acknowledging that they made up these rules in the previous chapters.
11/20/25, Page 67 – A quite contentious argument over whether an intended burnt offering can be come a sin offering or vice versa. They involved different slaughtering processes and care, and were done in different places on the Temple grounds. The upshot, though not all are satisfied, is that a burnt offering, the more stringent, can become a sin offering, but not the other way around. But it still frowned upon, as intentions, once again, matter.
11/21/25, Page 68 – I love when the Talmud gives me a perfect example of the (insane?) logic used in some of these rulings. Here’s the case. A woman brings two birds of different species to be sacrificed by the priest. He sacrifices them, but thinks he did so in the wrong order (not clear how that is determined). She is required to bring seven more birds, three of one type and four of the other. He then repeats the sacrifice in the reverse order of what he just did with one of each, then twice in pairs of two of a kind, all to make sure he covered all possible combinations, and then the seventh bird, of either type, is sin sacrificed, i.e., he gets to eat it. The logic used by the Talmudic folk? “A sheep makes only one sound when it is alive, a baa. However, in death, its two horns become trumpets, its two shinbones become flutes, its skin becomes a drumhead, its large intestines become harp strings, and its small intestines become lyre strings. Seven, there! See the connection!”
11/22/25, Page 69 – What to do if, after slaughtering a bird for sacrifice, it is found to be impure – either a type of bird that is not acceptable for sacrifice, or that it had a condition that would have rendered it impure, like a fatal disease? No worries, it seems. The act of ritual slaughter, if performed correctly, apparently negates the impurity. In fact, this is apparently true for other impure animals as well. Which begs the question of whether any animal that isn’t considered kosher can become kosher if slaughtered correctly? I’d guess not or it would be a topic of conversation – likely a difference between what is meant by “pure” versus “kosher”.
11/23/25, Page 70 – We are presented with an interesting concept, one that we rarely think about. Putting animals on trial. Literally, on trial. And, while it may have been a more common thing to involve courts in such cases, it’s not as if trials of animals deemed to be a public danger are unknown today. In the context of this tractate, the rabbis want to make sure it’s clear that while an animal sentenced to die by the court must be executed, it may not be used as a sacrifice, nor may its meat be eaten by the Temple priests.
11/24/25, Chapter 8, Page 71 – Bestiality is a big deal here. We’ve seen before that an animal (and often the person involved) in bestiality must be put to death. Today’s page adds a new layer – if the animal in question is part of a herd or flock that is being raised for sacrificial purposes, the entire herd or flock must be put to death. “Even if there are 10,000 animals in the herd.” Tainted and all that.
11/25/25, Page 72 – We are, as usual, off on a tangent, as the rabbis discuss and then narrow down six other items where a single bit of taint makes the entire batch or crop prohibited for use. Those are… nuts with brittle shells, pomegranates, but only pomegranates from the area of Badan (politics?), sealed barrels of wine, beet greens, cabbage stalks, and Greek gourds. There is some disagreement over whether to include homemade bread. No indication is given as to what would make those items tainted, but all seem to be in agreement.
11/26/25, Page 73 – Lies, damned lies, and statistics. We’ve heard before how unreliable statistics are. The rabbis are looking at this immense herd of cattle that, because they know that one of the animals is prohibited, they now have to, by the rules, destroy the entire herd. How to get around it? By misusing statistics, of course. They decide that any given animal that is selected out of this herd of ten thousand either is or isn’t the prohibited one, and they declare that to be a 50:50 chance, rather than the reality of 1:9999. In a mystical way, they’re right – after all, it really is or isn’t the tainted one. If I’m getting this right, they more or less remove two cows and destroy them, because if the first one was or wasn’t the right one to remove, then the second one has to cover the other base… right? That it saves 9998 cows is all they want – the ends justify the means.
11/27/25, Page 74 – They’re really doubling down on this bizarre statistical approach from yesterday’s page. If it is discovered, while preparing the carcasses of various sacrificial animals for the day’s barbecue, that one of them was blemished, and therefore unqualified for sacrifice, what is to be done? Well, we’re already midway through the sacrifices, so even though we don’t know which body parts that are being burned on the altar came from the now prohibited animal, let’s just assume that if we’ve already sacrificed two body parts, we’ve handled the 50:50 (not) probability, and one or the other that’s already up in smoke was the bad one.
11/28/25, Page 75 – This whole chapter is clearly about intermingling… and the maths just aren’t mathing. Today’s argument – we already know that for each sacrifice, the priest is supposed to sprinkle blood from the animal on each of the four corners of the altar in order to complete the ritual. So… some argue… instead of blood everywhere, and a huge mess to clean up, why not just put a little blood from each sacrifice during the course of the day into a container, and then at the end of the day, sprinkle the four corners once with the mixture. After all, it has a bit of each of the sacrifices in it. The arguments against are a) any given splatter might not have some of the sacrifices’ blood, and b) tradition, blood everywhere!
11/29/25, Page 76 – We’re back to the priests eating the leftovers from sacrifices, but maintaining a look into the world of “intermingling”. A point is made that while sacrificial offerings are often accompanied by specifically sacred herbs and spices, that the meat cooked for the priests is not limited to those. In fact, it is opined, their meal can be flavored with sacred spices, teruma spices (a list of aromatics that are considered appropriate gifts from non-priests to priests), and even, well, all the rest of the herbs and spices. Just because God is picky about his flavorings doesn’t mean his priests have to be. So, go wild in the kitchen! It’s probably worth noting that the sacred and teruma spice lists were made up by the rabbis anyway, not by God (looking forward to that tractate, Keritot).
11/30/25, Page 77 – There are limbs. Some of them are for eating by the priests, some of them are for burning on the altar. If they get mixed, some say do one things, some say do another. Amidst all the arguing over the fate of these limbs, the one thing the rabbis agree on is that God likes the smells of yeast and honey. I mean, who doesn’t?
12/1/25, Page 78 – How much can sacrificial blood be adulterated with other substances – impure blood, water, milk, wine… before it is considered impure and is not able to be used to complete the sacrificial ritual? Different percentages are discusses, and some advocate even down to “one drop of taint”. Where have we heard that whole “one drop” conversation before…?
12/2/25, Page 79 – So, I find myself musing. The rabbinic folk assert that if prohibited ingredients are mixed with allowed agreements, the litmus test for whether or not the resulting dish is prohibited or not is based on whether you can taste those added ingredients. The musing? Someone’s got to taste these dishes, and also know what the prohibited ingredients taste like, so they have to have tried those. And, although they’re primarily discussing meals prepared in the sacrificial setting, does this extend to, say, whether a dish is kosher or not? How much bacon and/or cheese makes a burger not kosher? I volunteer for the taste tests.
12/3/25, Page 80 – We’re back to the whole statistical nonsense. Here, we have the case of a container of prohibited blood and multiple containers of permitted blood, and somehow we’re not sure which is which. So two are randomly selected to sprinkle on the altar, since, just like knocking off two cows out of ten thousand, each one, in the rabbis’ view, has a 50:50 chance of being permitted, and once you’ve sprinkled one, obviously the second one “must be” the other, despite the dozens of other containers around.
12/4/25, Page 81 – I’m just loving the way these Talmudic rabbis used their 50:50 chance statistic. In the wake of yesterday’s unsurety about which blood is which, they admit that perhaps, there are situations where sprinkling two cups of blood simultaneously might not fit the bill of one or the other being impure. Particularly, they single out that one of the animals slaughtered might have been engaged in bestiality. Now, they don’t simply dump all the blood, but rather than picking two and sprinkling on the altar to handle their dilemma, they pick two and pour them down the drain, and declare that all is right in the world now.
12/5/25, Page 82 – I would truly love to sit down with a real Talmudic scholar to cover this particular chapter. The whole what I’m thinking of as Schrodinger’s cow and then Schrodinger’s blood, approach to these sacrifices baffles me. Today’s page – we know that one of two cups of blood is from a blemished animal. One cup is inside the sanctum at the altar, the other is outside. I’m not clear how, but they randomly decide which is which. If the one inside is considered pure, they continue the ritual, if the one outside is considered pure, they switch them and do the ritual. But… random choice.
12/6/25, Chapter 9, Page 83 – Another discussion about how to get around the rules, basically. I guess it fits in with the idea that this tractate is about being mindful of what one is doing rather than just performing a rote ritual. This chapter starts with the outline of sacrificial rites in Leviticus, where it mentions that while there are specific animals that are “supposed to be” sacrificed, anything put upon the Golden Altar is automatically sanctified. So why, some ask, do we even bother with the whole selection process, if anything is good? Others question whether “anything” really means “anything”. All agree it forces them to think about it.
12/7/25, Page 84 – Amidst a long discourse on which types of animals are officially disqualified from being used as sacrifices, and whether or not animals can be burnt alive, we pause to make sure the priests’ meals are taken care of properly. The meat from the sacrifice, it should be noted is not accompanied by a “libation” (i.e., a drink drunk in honor of a deity), but rather the reverse – the important thing is the drinking of drink and honoring of God, copiously, the meat is just to go along with it, and, presumably, sop up the alcohol.
12/8/25, Page 85 – Sometimes, it is clear from the last 80 plus pages, people bring an animal for sacrifice that is not appropriate. The debate today is over how to handle that with the person, since often, the disqualifying factor is found after the animal had been accepted, brought into the Temple, and slaughtered, while the person who brought it had left, thinking his part was done. It’s quite the debate, balancing “principle” against “specific case” against not embarrassing the penitent. While principle rules, the general feeling is not to notify the person who brought the animal, but leave it that they had the correct intent, and therefore their sacrifice, even though never completed, is valid.
12/9/25, Page 86 – We’ve seen that there are differences in the parts of the animal that are offered up in sacrifice depending on whether it’s a sin, guilt, or burnt offering. The one thing that the rabbis want to make clear to the priests is that “what goes up, shouldn’t come down” – i.e., if you put it on the altar, you have to burn it until it’s ashes – nothing left to remove from the altar other than that. And it has to be done prior to midnight of the same day, so plan accordingly.
12/10/25, Page 87 – Airspace rights. That’s pretty much today’s discussion. Two pages ago we found that even a disqualified sacrifice becomes sanctified the moment it touches the altar or the ramp leading to the altar. So a carcass that was discovered to be blemished while on the ramp, too late to take it back down (once one starts up the ramp, one is committed, by the rules), must be picked up and laid on the altar. Since, if it loses contact with the ramp or altar it would lose its sanctified status, the rabbis conclude that the airspace above both ramp and altar must also be the same as if the animal is in contact with the surface, maintaining this workaround.
12/11/25, Page 88 – Priests’ garments must be woven of wool. They should be cleaned regularly, as the rules are, if they can be cleaned by rinsing in water, one is allowed to use soap as well, but if they’re so dirty that rinsing them wouldn’t clean them, then no soap can be used and they must be thrown out and new ones worn. All at the expense of the people, of course.
12/12/25, Chapter 10, Page 89 – Sacrifices are not first come, first served. Those that are offered more frequently take precedence – daily sacrifices before weekly, before monthly, before annual, before one-offs. Burnt offerings take priority over sin offerings, which take priority over guilt offerings – those that burn more of the animal and leave less carcass to deal with are handled first. And, animal offerings, which require slaughter, come before bird offerings, which only require a twist of the neck, which come before grain offerings, which are just scooped out of a sack.
12/13/25, Page 90 – It appears that the meat destined to just be cooked and served to the priests, along with loaves of bread brought for sacrament, and anything else that’s going to be consumed, must be present in the altar room while the sprinkling of the blood is happening, or it’s not considered fit for their consumption. Gotta be sacred and all that – witness to the blood sprinkling.
12/14/25, Page 91 – Just in case we didn’t understand the concept from page 89 of precedence being based on frequency of offerings, the rabbis want to point out that this means that Sabbath (weekly) offerings come before New Moon (monthly), which come before New Year or Passover (yearly), which come before… circumcision (presuming that one is not having sons more often than once a year).
12/15/25, Chapter 11, Page 92 – In yet another one of the bizarre “late night stoned”, as I sometimes term them, rabbinical conversations, the Talmudic folk spend this entire page arguing over what type of blood and how much of it from animals or birds, warrants a priest laundering his garments. I guess it’s supposed to be “as opposed to throwing them out and putting on new ones”, which is a follow-on to page 88, a few days ago. But jeez, try a little Vanish and see if you can get the blood out and then decide if you need a new robe.
12/16/25, Page 93 – We continue with arguments over when a priest’s robe requires laundering. First they discuss whether it matters if the blood that gets on the robe is pure or impure, and then over if it was pure but became impure, and then a whole section on if it matters whether the blood came from a body cut or a neck cut, and finally over what if the priest wipes his blood sprinkling finger on his own robe? I’m sitting here wondering why not one of the rabbis in the discussion says… “your robe is covered in blood, wash the damn thing, who cares how it got bloody”.
12/17/25, Page 94 – What constitutes a “garment” that may, or may not (as we’ve seen in the last few pages), required laundering? After much discussion, it seems we’ve settled on a piece of cloth or leather that is at least three handbreadths wide in both directions. That’s, depending on who you ask, between 2-1/2 and 3 inches wide and long. It even includes things like shoes (a much debated inclusion).
12/18/25, Page 95 – If a priest gets urine on his garment, laundering it is required. Well, finally, we get some sensible laundry day advice. Then they pivot to vessels that are used to carry offerings into the altar area. If the offering becomes impure and it’s in an earthenware vessel, they have to destroy the vessel. If it’s in a copper vessel, they have to puncture and then repair the vessel (making it first a “non-vessel” and then restoring it to its function). Methinks that had more to do with the cost of a copper vessel versus a clay one.
12/19/25, Page 96 – Rami bar Hana is having an argument with his student, Rav Yitzhak bar Yehuda. Yitzhak has pointed out that Rami tends to reason out answers to philosophical questions based on logic, while recently he studied briefly with another teacher, Rav Shevet, who draws his answers from citing Torah. Rami is dismissive, pointing out that having spent so much time with himself, there’s no reason to let another teacher’s teachings influence him. Yitzhak argues that if it’s a better answer, he ought to. Rami asks for an example, Yitzhak proposes one, Rami cites Torah to answer it… but Yitzhak questions his citation, so Rami reasons out a logical answer. Unresolved.
12/20/25, Page 97 – There are time limits on consuming the meat that is part of a sacrificial offering. And today’s page relates that to the cleaning and purifying of the cooking pot (scour the inside, rinse the outside are the instructions). But, if you’re on, say, a pilgrimage, the rabbis conclude, that as long as the pot is essentially in continuous use, each days’ new additions of meat to the pot override the time limits on the previous contents – essentially, one of those perpetual stews that you just keep adding more to. And then you only have to clean your pot at the end of the journey.
12/21/25, Page 98 – The rabbis turn their attention to the purification of a garment that has become impure. They’ve mentioned laundering, and now they’re talking about immersion in a mikveh. Although not spelled out, I’m assuming that in general one needs to launder first, because the discussion centers on that if a garment is stained with something that interposes itself against the purification waters – like blood or fat stains – it prevents the full garment from becoming purified. Except… if the wearer is accustomed to being stained by one of those things, like a butcher or fat renderer/seller, in which case, it’s apparently fine if the stains remain.
12/22/25, Chapter 12, Page 99 – There’s a lot of extrapolation going on. The Torah rule about “receiving” sacrificial meat for a priest’s evening meal only state that the priest, in a state of purity, who offers the sacrifice, receives it. From there, the rabbinical folk rule that a) all priests who are pure and in the Temple at the time of sacrifice get to eat it, b) any priest who is in an incurable state of impurity gets to eat it, and c) any priest who is in a temporary state of impurity can do a quick immersion in a mikveh bath and then eat it, and d) any minors working in the Temple, or the families of the priests, can eat it. Everybody gets to eat!
12/23/25, Page 100 – This is one of those… “I can’t believe it’s an actual debate” questions. The time is coming up on Pesach, Passover, and the priests have extra special sacrificial duties. An immediate family member or person close to one of the priests dies, and, as one might expect, the priest is asked to attend the funeral and burial and participate in mourning rites. Someone actually raises the question of which is more important – the familial obligation or participating in the sacrificial ceremony. And, they actually debate it. As the kids say, SMH.
12/24/25, Page 101 – Yesterday’s bizarre debate continues, though the Talmud now turns to Leviticus 10, to point out that back when priests were first designated by God, starting with Aaron and his family, a tragedy befell them, and they didn’t complete the sacrificial ceremony and meal, and the sacrifice burned on the altar. When Moses confronts Aaron for not having fulfilled his obligations, his response is basically “do you see what we’re going through here?” And Moses goes, “oh, jeez, cool, sorry, you’re right”. But… but… Aaron is Moses’ older brother. How… why is Moses not also grief stricken?
12/25/25, Page 102 – Was Moses a priest? Was he king? That is the foundation of today’s argument. Not because it mattered whether he was or not, but because of his sister Miriam. She was a bit of a gossip, particularly about Moses’ non-Jewish, foreign-born wife. The story is that she was afflicted with a “spiritual disease”. Moses and Aaron had her sequestered. But, this condition can only be diagnosed by a priest who is not a relative. So how could either of them diagnose her? In the end, it didn’t matter, as Miriam was so popular that the people revolted against Moses and Aaron and refused to follow their commands until Miriam was released. Don’t mess with the it girl.
12/26/25, Page 103 – We’ve seen various passages about what happens to the blood and meat of sacrificial animals, but until this point, their hides have not come up. In the rules, it turns out, that if the animal is for any of the lesser sacrifices, the hide is returned to the owner, and in the more sacred sacrifices, they go to the priests – even in the case where the animal, after slaughter, is found to be “blemished”. But eyewitness testimony from the time period says “I have never seen those blemished hides go to the priests, they are always burned”. The Talmudic rabbis reject this testimony because… why? Speculation on their reasoning has followed this passage for centuries, without conclusion.
12/27/25, Page 104 – The argument over the animal hides continue, as some rabbis opine that they need to go back and accept the eyewitness testimonies, while others maintain that the original decision was the correct one, as those folk had better information. So they move on to a discussion about the “bira”, designated as the place to burn the disqualified animals, apart from the altar. The word bira doesn’t mean anything in context (depending on accent, it either means capital city or beer), and this degenerates into a long discussion about what could possibly have been meant by it, with arguments circling around a supposed exterior tower to the Temple.
12/28/25, Page 105 – Almost a meditation on sacred versus profane status, today’s page looks at sacrifices that are either in the act of being taken out of the Temple prior to sacrifice, as well as those that have been taken out and returned. At what point in the carrying out process does the animal lose its sacred status – when the majority of those carrying it out have stepped out the door, or not until the majority of the carcass itself has passed the threshold? And what if it is carried out and back in? Does it regain its sacred status? The argument continues to this day and has never been resolved.
12/29/25, Chapter 13, Page 106 – The “meat of the matter” as this chapter starts is that it is prohibited to offer sacrifices outside of the official Temple. That included Jews in the diaspora, which, after the destruction of the Temple became more and more a “thing”. Over time, rabbis and philosophers gradually nudged the conversation to treat actual sacrifice as a metaphor, reimagining ritual practice and worship through prayer, study, charity, and symbolic acts, and treating daily liturgy and Torah learning as spiritual offerings.
12/30/25, Page 107 – Okay, we have a serious, I mean, really serious, mathematical issue in a bout of Torah versus Talmud today. Remember yesterday, when we learned that it was prohibited to offer sacrifices outside the Temple? I didn’t mention, but the punishment was excommunication. Here’s the issue. The Torah says there are 36 sins that are punishable by excommunication, and lists offering sacrifices outside the Temple as one of those. But, but… the rabbis have decided that offering said sacrifice is really 2 different sins – one where the slaughter takes place outside the Temple as well, and one where it takes place inside. So is it 37? Or is one of those not excommunicable? Or are those really the same sin? The scary part is, they can’t decide, because they don’t want to admit they got it wrong.
12/31/25, Page 108 – We end the Gregorian calendar year with a “teiku”, yet another unresolved argument. The case before the rabbis today is a pigeon’s head which was offered up as a ritual sacrifice (prior to the rest of the bird being eaten – squab, you know). Since an “olive bulk’s” worth of meat is required for a sacrifice, what about a pigeon’s head that doesn’t have that much meat? The argument is first over whether the bones count in the bulk, and then, whether the salt used to draw the blood out, which is a requirement, counts? As I said, it was left unresolved, with factions arguing for and against either or both.
1/1/26, Page 109 – We have a nugget of wisdom in the midst of yet another series of arguments. The arguments here are, like yesterday’s over salt and bone, first, over fat – does it count in the volume of meat being sacrificed? Then they turn to grain offerings, and incenses, and the various minimums. The arguments range far and wide, but in the midst of it all, particularly a thorny argument between rabbis Abaye and Rabba, it becomes clear. These arguments, often, are not about getting to an answer, but about understanding each and every possible viewpoint before reaching a decision – even the viewpoints that at face value seem ridiculous.
1/2/26, Page 110 – I’m liking the direction the Talmud is taking here. The rabbis discuss the act of a grain sacrifice. The basic procedure is a priest takes a handful of grain from the bulk offered, carries it to the altar, and burns it. The rest is removed to be eaten. The question discussed is “what if” the priest didn’t complete the procedure and returned the handful to the pot? The commentators make it fairly clear that this is not a plausible scenario, no priest would violate the sacrament so blatantly. Rather it becomes a discussion about whether the sanctity that is imparte to the grain as the procedure is undertaken is… “sticky”… or can sanctity be undone by either accident or intention.
1/3/26, Page 111 – The plot turns to the pre-Temple times, back when Jews were doing their 40-year wander in the desert, and then as they started to settle into permanent homes once they returned to Judea/Israel. At the time, sacrifices on smaller altars were commanded, as the Temple didn’t yet exist, but, libations – wine and water – were not commanded. Today’s page explores why that might have been the case, as once the Temple was built, those are added in as requirements. No real conclusions are arrived at.
1/4/26, Chapter 14, Page 112 – The chapter starts with sort of a summary of when and how sacrificial rites changed in ancient Jewish tradition. Basically, prior to the building of the Temple, sacrifices could be performed at private altars, were performed by the eldest son of the family, and the sacrificial meal was eaten at home. After the building of the Temple, they could only be performed there, the duties were taken over by the priests, and the meal was eaten, depending on type of sacrifice, in the tabernacle or the courtyard. Basically, the rabbis and priests, mandated that what had been a private, family ritual, become public, communal one that came with a fee into their pockets.
1/5/26, Page 113 – We have a rewriting of The Flood story. The argument, today, is that while the entire rest of the world was flooded and the vast majority of people were killed, Israel was spared. A few, here and there, died, but more from heat than from rain (why heat, is not explained), and their bodies were washed away (by the flood that wasn’t there?) to Babylon, thus leaving the soil of Israel free of corpse contamination and impurities. This allows all sorts of loopholes around sacrificial rites that are affected by buried corpses, because those didn’t, therefore exist, and if you found human remains, they were probably fake news.
1/6/26, Page 114 – I appreciate the concept of “consider every possibility, even the ones not likely to happen”, as a sort of intellectual and philosophical exercise. But… today we have the case of an animal which has been certified and sanctified and brought to the Temple for sacrifice. It has been admitted to the Temple and is now considered sacred. And then someone, be it the person who brought it, a stablehand, or even a priest, has sex with it. Do we really need to have a conversation about whether it’s still sanctified? About whether, because it happened in a holy space, the act, the person, and/or the animal are exempt or not from the usual rules?
1/7/26, Page 115 – Today’s page looks at silence as a response to major life events, and the discussion begins with a look at Aaron’s silence after two of his sons are killed for violating sacrificial law by offering an inappropriate burnt offering at the Altar, while drunk. Over the years, his mute response has been analyzed over and over, all with the same conclusion, that sometimes silence is the called for response, but with different paths to get there – an act of grief, of humility, of worship, of obedience, of defiance.
1/8/26, Page 116 – We’re getting all mystical here. When, exactly, was the Torah written, and when did the Jewish people become aware of it? We all know the Moses story and Mt. Sinai and all that. But according to revealed prophecy, the Torah was written by God 1000 generations before that, which is 974 generations before Creation (since, biblical timelines have Moses coming in 26 generations after Creation). And how does this all relate to Noah and his Ark? I mean, why did he bring tereifa, animals that couldn’t be sanctified, onto it? It would have been the perfect opportunity to get rid of them all, no? Except, some surmise, non-sanctified animals weren’t always non-sanctified.
1/9/26, Page 117 – An interesting discussion today that boils down to the tension between universality and particularity – an argument that often comes up in political arenas more than religious. Federal control versus states’ rights is probably foremost in our minds these days. Why, if God is everywhere, are sacrifices and associated rituals only permitted in one place? Control of the narrative. On its face, it would seem like the rabbis just want to control the sacrifices, but it’s broader than that. If people could offer sacrifices and rituals anywhere and everywhere, it would take very little time before Judaism fractured into individual cults, each with its own rules and practices.
1/10/26, Page 118 – One might think the famed twelve tribes would, in general, manage to get along. But when it comes to the Tabernacle and Altar, the rabbinical set get heated. When it is claimed that the Altar is located within Benjamin’s territory the claws come out as supporters of Judah, Ephraim, and Joseph all make counterclaims. The arguments get heated, with insults about pride, possessiveness, hoarding, non-sharing, and even parental shame are bandied about with sharp tongues. Even today, Talmudic scholars wade into this controversy, though perhaps with a bit less heat and more academic tone.
1/11/26, Page 119 – As this tractate winds down, the rabbis turn to Jerusalem, figuratively. Why is Jerusalem, and the site of the destroyed Temple, imbued with such an air of holiness? The reason, those of more spiritual bent avow, is because the site wasn’t picked by humans, but by God. It is an “axis mundi”, a point where the human and divine come together and touch, and will remain so for all eternity, whether the Temple is ever rebuilt or not. Our one and only Jewish “chakra”, and it derives energy from ritual worship practices and the vision of a possible restored future. Perhaps interesting that one of the key chakras is also in Jerusalem, and the only one held out separately, not on an energy line.
1/12/26, Page 120 – This tractate wraps up yesterday’s image of Jerusalem and the Temple as a spiritual energy center of the world, by delving into the idea that with the Temple gone, and perhaps one day even Jerusalem, they both remain present in life through memory, prayer, and song. This is also a great lead-in to the next tractate, Menachot, which moves from animal sacrifices to those of agricultural products, but approaching them through human creativity and transformation – grain becomes bread, oil becomes light, incense becomes fragrance.

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