Zevachim 8

Today’s daf returns to a teaching from the opening mishnah of the tractate, which stated that:

The paschal offering is unfit only at its appointed time.

Many sacrifices, if offered with wrong intention, are not invalid, they just don’t serve the original purpose for which they were intended. This is not true for the paschal sacrifice offered with wrong intention on the 14th of Nisan, Erev Passover. Such a sacrifice is simply invalid. But if it is not the correct time for the Passover sacrifice, it may simply become a different kind of sacrifice. 

None of this is obviously biblical, but the rabbis seek to ground it in Torah. Accordingly, the Gemara asks where this teaching is derived and then supplies Leviticus 3:6: “And if your offering for a peace sacrifice to the Lord is from the flock, whether a male or a female, you shall offer one without blemish.” Notice that this verse makes no mention of a redesignated Passover sacrifice, but it does speak about a peace offering brought from “the flock,” meaning a goat or sheep. Since the paschal offering is also brought exclusively from “the flock,” the rabbis conclude that if a paschal offering was mistakenly offered as a peace offering (and it wasn’t the 14th of Nisan) it is valid.

But why stop there? Rabbi Ilai suggests a far more expansive reading of the verse. Perhaps, he suggests, Leviticus 3:6 teaches that a sacrifice originally designated as a paschal offering can become any sacrifice (not just a peace offering) as long as it is not slaughtered on the eve of Passover. 

He may have gone too far. Rav Ilai’s justification for this reading is a midrashic (interpretive) technique called ribui (multiplication), a practice associated with the school of Rabbi Akiva. Not all sages agreed with Rabbi Akiva’s creative interpretive methods. Another school, belonging to Rabbi Yishmael, feared that interpretations that take too many liberties can easily erase the simple meaning of a verse. In this light, the Gemara challenges Rabbi Ilai: 

If the phrase: “offering and a peace sacrifice,” was written in the verse, it would be as you say. Now that it is written: “offering for a peace sacrifice,” it indicates that for whatever type of offering one slaughters it, it will be a peace offering. 

The verse’s specification of peace offering cannot be ignored! Rav Ilai’s interpretation is struck down. However, the Gemara suggests a middle ground: If you slaughtered your paschal offering as something else — anything else — and it is not the 14th of Nisan, you have just rendered it a kosher peace offering.

This isn’t the end of the line. The debate will continue into tomorrow’s daf. Not only do we find there a lively debate about the validity of a paschal offering that is accidentally slaughtered as some other kind of sacrifice, there is also contention over two methods of biblical interpretation: that of Rabbi Akiva and that of Rabbi Yishmael. It’s easy to get caught up in the technicalities: How exactly is this verse being used to justify a certain reading? Is that interpretive technique valid? But let’s also consider what the rabbis are trying to accomplish with these complicated readings. It seems that the writers of the Talmud wish to preserve the uniqueness of the paschal sacrifice by limiting the time frame during which it is offered. At the same time, they are looking to preserve a certain measure of flexibility by allowing the paschal offering that was slaughtered under the wrong intention to, in most cases, remain a kosher offering.

Read all of Zevachim 8 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 22, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.