If you missed yesterday’s essay on Shevuot 10, it’s a good idea to read it before you read this one. Yesterday, we learned that Ulla stated in the name of Rabbi Yohanan that there are too many sacrificial lambs for the daily offering in a fiscal year, they can be redeemed — even if they are unblemished. This was a surprise since most sacrificial animals can only be redeemed if they develop a physical blemish, rendering them no longer fit for the altar.
The Gemara then related that Rabba recited this halakhah and Rav Hisda objected. From there, Rabba and Rav Hisda went back and forth over this point; a discussion that continues on today’s daf with this challenge from Rav Hisda:
In any case, it is still difficult: But the sanctity that was inherent in them, to where has it gone?
Rabba said: The court tacitly stipulates concerning these offerings as follows: If they are ultimately required to be used as offerings that year, then they are required for that. But if they are not required that year, then they are only to be consecrated for their value.
One way to frame the problem is that the leftover lambs don’t lose their inherent sanctity when they are sold. That can only happen if they become unfit to offer — for instance, they develop a blemish. So how can we redeem them? According to Rabba, through stipulation of the court. At the time the court acquires the items for sacred purposes, they set a condition: If the animal (or incense) is used that year, then it has inherent sanctity. But if it is ultimately unnecessary, then retroactively it will only have ever been consecrated for its value. And, like all other things consecrated only for their value, it can be redeemed even in the absence of developing a blemish.
Abaye, who frequently intrudes to present challenges, raises a difficulty:
Abaye raised an objection from that which is taught in a beraita: “With regard to the bull and the goat of Yom Kippur that were lost, and one separated and sacrificed others in their stead, and likewise, goats that were designated to atone for an act of unwitting public idol worship that were lost, and one separated and sacrificed others in their stead, in such cases, all of the lost animals, should they subsequently be found, shall be left to die. — this is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. But Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon say: They should graze until they become unfit by developing a blemish, and then they are sold and their proceeds are allocated for communal gift offerings. They are not left to die, because the halakhah is that a communal sin-offering is not left to die.” But why? Let us say here also that the court tacitly stipulates concerning them!
That was a relatively long beraita, but the relevant point is this: All these animals that are designated as sacrifices but ultimately not used are either left to die or put out to pasture to develop a blemish and then sold. If it’s possible for the court to stipulate that a communal offering’s inherent sanctity is dependent upon when it’s ultimately needed, why shouldn’t this apply to the communal sin offerings mentioned in the beraita? If such a stipulation is effective, then just as in the case of daily offerings, it should be possible to redeem the lost and recovered animals even before they develop a blemish.
Once again, Rabba defends himself:
Cases of lost animals are different, because they are not common.
Perhaps with regard to daily offerings, where the likelihood of having extra offerings at the end of the fiscal year is quite high, such a stipulation by the court is normative practice; but since an animal being lost is an aberrant event, the court doesn’t bother to stipulate about such an occurrence when purchasing communal sin offerings. Therefore, the beraita doesn’t disprove that such a stipulation would work in the case of daily offerings.
This whole topic appears to be a detour from our larger discussion of which goats atones for which sins. But Abaye will ultimately raise a challenge to Rabba later in our daf from our mishnah’s teaching about whether goats consecrated for one holy day can instead be sacrificed for a different one, thereby tying all our topics together.
Read all of Shevuot 11 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 12, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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