In the first few pages of Tractate Menachot, we’ve been exploring the question of what to do when a mincha, a grain offering, is brought not for its own sake but for the sake of another offering, meaning that one type of sacrifice was initially designated, but a different one was performed. On today’s daf, that discussion continues with a teaching from Rav on this subject that seems at odds with the mishnah that opened this tractate. In short, Rav cites three sacrifices: the omer offering of barley, the guilt offering of a nazir, and the guilt offering of a person with tzaraat, commonly translated as leprosy. Rav states that if any of these three offerings is brought not for its own sake, the offering is not only ineffective in achieving atonement or other results, but disqualified altogether.
Rav’s statement is surprising because it seems at odds with what we have learned in the opening mishnah, which implies that most meal offerings, when brought with wrong intention, are not disqualified. The exceptions cited in that mishnah do not include the omer, the barley offering brought on the second day of Passover. Similarly, there is a mishnah from Zevachim that lists all animal sacrifices which, when offered with wrong intention, are disqualified. Yet, it omits mention of the two guilt offerings mentioned by Rav. So, it appears that Rav’s ruling stands in contradiction to these two mishnahs.
The Gemara on today’s daf is largely devoted to solving this quandary. In the course of discussing the two guilt offerings, Rabbi Yirmeya makes the following poignant observation:
Rabbi Yirmeya said: We find that the Torah differentiates between those guilt offerings that atone and those that render fit. With regard to those guilt offerings that atone, there are among them offerings that come after death, whereas with those that render fit, there are none among them that come after death. As we learned in a mishnah (Kinnim 2:5): With regard to a woman after childbirth who brought her sin offering for her ritual purification and died, the heirs shall bring her burnt offering. But if she set aside her burnt offering and died, the heirs shall not bring her sin offering.
In Leviticus chapter 12, we learn that after a woman gives birth, she must wait a period of time (33 days for a boy and 66 for a girl), and then bring two sacrifices: a burnt offering and a sin offering. These sacrifices serve separate functions. The burnt offering grants her atonement, while the sin offering gives her permission to enter the Temple.
In Kinnim, we learn that if the new mother brought her sin offering to the Temple but died before she could offer the burnt offering, her bereaved heirs are expected to bring the second sacrifice, the burnt offering, on her behalf to the Temple. But if the situation is reversed and she lived long enough after the birth to bring the burnt offering but not the sin offering, her heirs don’t complete this second sacrifice posthumously.
Why is only one of these two offerings brought after her death? Likely, the reasoning is that the sin offering — which was meant to grant her entry to the Temple — is moot, as she no longer walks on the earth. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense for her heirs to bring it. The burnt offering, however, brings atonement. When her heirs offer it on her behalf, it still grants her atonement, even in death.
In the larger flow of today’s daf, the purpose of Rabbi Yirmeya’s statement is to draw an analogy to illuminate two kinds of guilt offerings: those that atone and those that render the giver fit to do a particular action. This explanation, in turn, sheds light on Rav’s surprising statement about two guilt offerings that, if offered with improper intention, are invalidated. But how do we understand the surprising conclusion of Rabbi Yirmeya’s teaching that atonement can be made for someone after they have died?
While Judaism focuses primarily on atonement as a practice of the living, posthumous atonement remains a part of the tradition. Today, of course, no one brings a sacrifice to atone for the sins of a departed ancestor. However, one traditional interpretation of the practice of saying Kaddish for a loved one is the belief that doing so elevates the person’s soul in the afterlife. Similarly, giving tzedakah and learning Torah in the name of a deceased parent can both honor them and provide a spiritual benefit not only to the child but also to the departed parent. I hope and imagine that the bereaved children described in Mishnah Kinnim similarly felt some form of comfort in completing their mother’s sacrifice, affording her posthumous atonement.
Read all of Menachot 4 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on January 15, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
