2,711 pages of Talmud. A gem a day.

Good little gem today:

The mishna teaches with regard to the sin offerings whose blood is presented inside the Sanctuary: As to the remainder of the blood which is left after the sprinklings, a priest would pour it onto the western base of the external altar. The Gemara asks: What is the reason that it must be poured on the western base? The Gemara answers: The verse states with regard to the bull offering of the High Priest: “And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the corners of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the Tent of Meeting; and all the remaining blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (Leviticus 4:7). This means that he must pour it on that base which he encounters first when he leaves the Tent of Meeting, which is the western base.

The gem here is that the priests pours the remains at the first base he encounters, that means the first opportunity he has to do the mitzah he does it!

We should all learn from that – do mitzvahs right away, wherever you encounter them.

To read today’s daf, you need to understand some Talmudic terms that all are ways of deriving laws based on other laws. Steinsaltz defines the terms:

 Hekesh – is an analogy. When two cases are mentioned together in the same passage or in adjacent passages, we can assume that since they are juxtaposed, they are analogous. For this reason, legal inferences may be drawn by comparing the two cases. On rare occasions, such as in our case, the analogy may be stated explicitly in the Torah.

Gezeira shava – is a verbal analogy. If the same word or phrase appears in two places in the Torah, we may infer on the basis of “verbal analogy” that the same law must apply in the other case, as well.

Kal vaḥomer – is an a fortiori inference. This is a rule of logical argumentation by means of which a comparison is drawn between two cases, one lenient and the other stringent. Kal vaḥomer asserts that if the law is stringent in a case where we are usually lenient, then it will certainly be stringent in a more serious case; likewise, if the law is lenient in a case where we are usually not lenient, then it will certainly be lenient in a less serious case.

Binyan av – is an interpretation based on paradigm. While there are different types of binyan av, the simplest form of binyan av follows the logical pattern “just as we find in Case A that Law X applies, so too we may infer that in Case B, which is similar to Case A, law X should apply.”

Vocab is our gem!!

Today we learn that the sin offerings must be offered in the north. We learned previously that this is where the olah offerings were given as well! What a lesson, people who see others bringing the offerings will not know if they’ve sinned or not and will not be embarrassed… as long as they’re the kind of person to give a free will offering.

On our daf today we get a section of Mishnah that is read everyday as it’s included in the traditional prayer book!!

MISHNA: What is the location of the slaughtering and consumption of offerings? The principle is that with regard to offerings of the most sacred order, their slaughter is in the north of the Temple courtyard.

The passage discusses the specific sacrifices that take place on Yom Kippur, and the location of the blood sprinkling.  (Including when the priest collects blood…in his hands!)

The best part is why this section was selected… because it has no arguments!!!! No: rabbi A says this but Rabbi B says that. No, “you might have thought.” What will the Tamkins even look like without the Rabbis fighting over its meaning?! Over the next couple of days we shall see.

Why is a section of Talmud included in the prayer book? 1) So we get credit for studying Talmud every day and 2) because prayer replaced the sacrifices described in Zevachim.

Sometimes the daf uses a word I don’t know. (Okay that happens a lot.) Today, I clicked on the word נוּמִי numi as the verse says נוּמִי רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן numi Rabbi Shimon instead of the usual words. The divtionary said “ulcer” which makes no sense. So, a long dive later, I learned that Rashi says it means that Rabbi Shimon was making his ruling from his deathbed. What a wonderful gem, that we should be learning, teaching, and studying even on our death bed.

Today’s gem is the BIGGEST gem of the entire tractate! It answers the question: Why are we even studying this? There is no Temple to offer sacrifices!

Does one issue a halakha for the messianic period, when the Temple will be rebuilt? Abaye said to him: If that is so, that such halakhot are not taught, let the tanna not teach all the halakhot of the slaughter of sacrificial animals, i.e., tractate Zevaḥim, as it is entirely a halakha for the messianic period. Rather, one studies these halakhot due to the principle of: Study Torah and receive reward, i.e., one is rewarded for the study of Torah regardless of its practical applicability. Here too, study Torah and receive reward.

Why are we even studying this? Should we really be issuing laws that have no relevancy? Should we really spend so much time examining and arguing about what will happen in the Temple, the Temple which will not be rebuilt until the time of the Messiah?

We get the answer – we are rewarded for studying it, even if we cannot apply it to the Temple.

All the more so, we are rewarded for studying it if we can apply it’s lessons to our lives today, a world that has not been redeemed.

The priests were not like other Israelites. the priests had no land, had no job outside of serving the Temple, they relied completely on the sacrifices offered by others for their food. Today, amidst learning about how so many things can disqualify a sacrifice so that it becomes piggul or notar – forbidden because of improper intention or being out of the window of when it’s okay to consume the sacrifice – we are reminded of what the priest CAN eat. So, don’t worry people, they were taken care of.

“Every offering of theirs,” which serves to include the log of oil of a leper;

“Every meal offering of theirs,” serves to include the omer meal offering, brought as a communal offering on the sixteenth of Nisan, and the meal offering of jealousy, brought by a sota.

“And every sin offering of theirs,” serves to include the bird sin offering;

“Every guilt offering of theirs,” serves to include the guilt offering of a nazirite who contracted ritual impurity, and the guilt offering of a leper.

I picture the priests as burley men. Huge and strong and very well fed. More Dwayne the Rock Johnson than Matthew Gray Gubler.

This passage struck me as beautiful:

As Ulla says: The mishna taught that items that descended from the altar shall not ascend again only where the fire has not taken hold of them, but where the fire has already taken hold of them, they shall ascend.

We can come and go from holy places, magical experiences, and feel nothing . . . or something can ignite our passion, something can set us on fire, we feel transcendence, glimpse the holy. It can be everything.

A lot of Jewish law is derived by the rabbis from association and juxtaposition of words. Today’s gem comes to explain why so much law needs to be derived in this round about kind of way – because God loves us so much God doesn’t want to detail our wrongs.

The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: For what reason are the diaphragm and the two kidneys stated with regard to the bull for an unwitting sin of the anointed priest, and they are not explicitly stated with regard to the bull for an unwitting communal sin? This can be explained by a parable: It can be compared to a flesh-and-blood king who grew angry with his beloved servant for his misdeeds, but spoke little of the servant’s offense due to his great affection for him. Likewise, as the Jewish people are beloved by God, the Torah does not describe their sin offering in detail.

I remember how I would tell my mom all about when my boyfriend(s) were doing things wrong, when they annoyed me and when we were fighting. The result? She didn’t like them. But, when things were going well, I didn’t need to talk! But I realized that if I wanted her to like a partner, I needed to not give so many negative details, especially if I wasn’t going to spend time sharing all the good. Now, with social media, it seems the world tilts towards the opposite, we talk all about the good in our lives and very rarely, if ever, express the bad. Both give distortions to reality. The daf reminds me that when we love someone, we may not want to put them on blast and express all their faults to others, and yet – we should not pretend that all is perfect. Just like the priests offers the sacrifice for our sins, but maybe we don’t have to give every detail . . .