The Talmud on sacrificial restrictions and prostitution

LAST WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: If a Man Gives a Woman a Lamb in Exchange for Sex. This week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ follows its own logic from animal sacrifice to definitions of prostitution.

The Talmud seldom explicitly reckons with the fact that the laws of animal sacrifice are in abeyance. One exception comes in Chapter 5 of Temura, when the rabbis address the issue of whether it is possible to use “artifice” to get around the obligation to sacrifice every firstborn animal. The problem is that while there is no place to actually sacrifice such animals today, they are still born consecrated to God, which means that they can’t be eaten, shorn, or used for labor. Rather, one is supposed to let them alone until they develop a blemish that would render them unsuitable for sacrifice. Only then is it permitted to derive benefit from them, since they can no longer even theoretically be brought to the altar.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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