Leviticus 2:13 requires that, “You shall season every offering of meal with salt.” More than just a flavor enhancer, the salt is also symbolic of the priests’ relationship with God, as the verse continues: “You shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt.” Indeed, in describing the portions of sacrifices given to the priests, the Book of Numbers reiterates this idea: “All the sacred gifts that the Israelites set aside for God I give to you, to your sons, and to the daughters that are with you, as a due for all time. It shall be an everlasting covenant of salt before God for you and for your offspring as well.” (18:19)
Why salt? The 12th-century French Tosafist Rabbi Joseph ben Isaac, known as the Bekhor Shor, points out that salt preserves food. He suggests God commands the priests to season sacrifices with it in order to demonstrate their understanding that sacrifices are an everlasting covenant between God and the Jewish people, which similarly sustains the world and facilitates atonement. The Bekhor Shor sees the actions of sacrifices, and all their accompaniments, as opportunities for the priests to demonstrate their understanding of the eternality of our relationship with God, and their willingness to do what God commands of us.
The Bekhor Shor’s explanation is particularly striking given that he wrote his biblical commentary over a thousand years after the destruction of the Temple and the end of sacrifices. But it still makes sense when we consider that the work of learning about those sacrifices serves as our holding up our end of an eternal bargain with God.
The Talmud’s question today is superficially about what kind of salt can be used to season the mincha. But it is also rooted in this understanding of salt as both symbolic and crucial to the sacrifice. Returning to Leviticus 2:13, the Gemara states:
“And you shall not omit (tashbit) salt from your meal offering,” — one should bring salt that never rests (shovetet). And what is this? This is the salt of Sodom.
Through a clever play on biblical Hebrew words, tashbit and shovevet, which come from the same verbal root (the one that also gives us the word Shabbat), the rabbis conclude that the mincha offerings should be accompanied by Sodomite salt, the large salt crystals found near the Dead Sea. But while sea salt is ideal, the Talmud offers a backup:
And from where is it derived that if one did not find salt of Sodom that he should bring salt of the desert? The verse states immediately afterward: “With all your offerings you shall sacrifice salt” (Leviticus 2:13) you should sacrifice any type of salt; you should sacrifice salt from any place; you should sacrifice salt even on Shabbat; and you should sacrifice salt even in a state of ritual impurity.
Salt of Sodom is a rabbinic term for the salt found near the Dead Sea, and while it’s on one level simply a term for sea salt, it’s also a reference to the destruction of the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. This salt is thereby associated with the total destruction of a place known for its cruelty and evil.
To put the Torah, the Talmud, and the Bekhor Shor in conversation with each other, then, we see that the covenant of salt is rooted in a biblical past between God and the priests that extends eternally into our Jewish future. It also represents a belief that evil and injustice have no place in our world, and must be rooted out, in order for us to build a better future for ourselves and our children.
We no longer make salted sacrifices, of course. But salt continues to play a role in Jewish practice. Many Jews salt their challah at the Shabbat table — a reminder of the sacrifices, to be sure, but perhaps also another way of thinking through the eternality of the divine covenant and its call for rooting out corruption and abuse.
Read all of Menachot 21 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on February 1, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
