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Tuesday, June 26, 2018

The Talmud on bird sacrifices

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Bird Sacrifice. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ Talmudic rabbis try to establish the rules governing ritual slaughter of feathered offerings.
The sacrifices discussed in the first chapters of Tractate Zevachim involved the slaughter of large animals such as bulls and sheep. With Chapter Seven, the focus moves to bird offerings—the doves and pigeons that are prescribed for sacrifice in the Torah. Bird offerings, too, come in two varieties: sin offerings, whose meat is set aside for consumption by the priests, and burnt offerings, which are burned whole on the altar. Much of the Talmudic discussion revolves around problems that arise when one type of sacrifice is accidentally performed as the other type: Are the offerings still valid, and can they be eaten without communicating impurity?

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Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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