Menachot 9

When Does Holiness Begin?

Today’s daf focuses on the question: At what point does a meal offering become sacred? A minḥa is made from flour, oil, and frankincense — but what if those ingredients were mixed outside the Temple courtyard?

Rabbi Yoḥanan says the offering is invalid; Reish Lakish says it is fine. Reish Lakish argues that since a kohen(priest) is not required for the mixing — only later, when the fistful (kometz) is taken — the mixing itself is merely preparatory and need not happen in the Temple. Rabbi Yoḥanan counters that the mixture is prepared in a keli sharet, a sacred Temple vessel, which makes this stage part of the holy process and therefore bound to sacred space.

Tosafot note an irony: if the ingredients are never mixed at all, the offering can still be valid — suggesting that doing something incorrectly can be worse than not doing it at all.

That’s a powerful lesson for us. As is the lesson that even our “preparatory” moments can either support holiness or quietly undermine it.