Leviticus 1:14 states: “If your offering to God is a burnt offering of birds, you shall choose your offering from doves or young pigeons.” On today’s daf, the Talmud asserts this verse teaches is written in this way:
To exclude a bird that was the object of bestiality or that was worshipped.
The anonymous voice of the Talmud reads Leviticus 1:14 as specifically teaching that one cannot offer a bird that was sexually abused or worshipped as a god. (Incidentally, in case the first condition made you squint, please note the medieval commentators have an extensive disagreement over whether one could use a bird for bestiality.) Though the Talmud doesn’t explain its logic, I think it’s drawing on the specific word “from” in the verse — meaning that one must be selective in making sure not to offer a bird which has been used to violate Torah law in some way.
Isn’t that obvious that birds used for sexual misconduct and idolatry would not make fit sacrifices? Apparently not.
It could enter your mind to say: It is written about sacrificial animals:“Nor shall you accept such animals from a foreigner for offering as food for your God, for they are corrupted, they have a defect” (Leviticus 22:25), and the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: Anywhere that “corrupted” is stated, it is nothing other than a matter of licentiousness and idol worship.
We’re only partway through the argument, but let me jump in just to say that the Talmud is reading the doubling of negative descriptions of foreigners’ offerings (“they are corrupted, they have a defect”) as insisting that their animal offerings are biblically disqualified because they have been used for one of two things: bestiality or idol worship. Note that the word being translated here as “corrupted” is derived from Hebrew verbal root shin-het-tet from which the word shechita, kosher slaughter, is also derived. The repetition of this verbal root is the occasion for drawing different verses together for interpretation.
We saw in Tractate Avodah Zarah that the rabbis were suspicious of non-Jews corrupting themselves by engaging in these two specific behaviors, likely based on what they were seeing in the Roman world. But how does the school of Rabbi Yishmael get from “corrupted” to these two specific sins? Through a play on words.
Matters of licentiousness, as it is written: “For all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth” (Genesis 6:12); Idol worship, as it is written: “Lest you deal corruptly, and make you a graven image” (Deuteronomy 4:16).
The verse from Deuteronomy clearly points to idolatry, but the one from Genesis is less obviously dealing with bestiality. For the rabbis, that verse comes in the context of a strange interlude earlier in the chapter when “sons of God” and “daughter of men” inappropriately mate (Genesis 6:2) which, to the rabbis, also evokes the idea of illicit sexual liaisons between humans and animals. With this linguistic explanation offered, the Talmud jumps back into its argument about the point of Leviticus 1:14:
One might have thought: Any type of offering that a blemish disqualifies, matters of licentiousness and idol worship disqualify it, and any that a blemish does not disqualify, matters of licentiousness and idol worship do not disqualify it. And these birds, since blemishes do not disqualify them, as the Master says: There is a requirement of an unblemished state and male gender in a sacrificial animal and there is no requirement of an unblemished state and male gender in sacrificial birds, say that matters of licentiousness and idol worship should also not disqualify.
That was long-winded in literal translation, but here is the essence: It would be reasonable to assume that the laws around sacrificial mammals and the laws of sacrificial birds should parallel. Cows, sheep and goats cannot be offered if they are blemished in some way, and also cannot be offered if they have been used for bestiality or foreign worship. But birds can be sacrificed if they have a blemish — so one might reasonably assume they can also be sacrificed if they were used for one of these two sins.
Therefore, it teaches us “from doves or young pigeons…”The Talmud concludes that we actually need this biblical verse to prohibit the sacrifice of birds that have been implicated in the aforementioned sins. Certain things are so evil, that other creatures involved in them become ineligible to be sacrificed to God.
Read all of Chullin 23 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 23, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
Help us keep Jewish knowledge accessible to millions of people around the world. With your help, My Jewish Learning can provide endless opportunities for learning, connection and discovery.
