Menachot 60

Tractate Menachot, like many tractates of the Talmud, did not open with an overview of meal offerings. Instead, it jumped straight to intricacies, such as what happens when one has improper intent at different stages of the ritual, or which elements can preclude the offering of others. Only now, in the fifth chapter, are we getting basic rules that allow us to form a clearer picture of what these offerings looked like. Recently, we learned that they can be composed of flour and oil and frankincense, or just flour and oil, or just flour and frankincense, or even just flour. A mishnah on today’s daf categorizes meal offerings by what presentation rituals accompany them:

There are four categories of meal offerings: Those that require bringing near, but do not require waving; those that require both bringing near and waving; those that require waving but not bringing near; and those that require neither waving nor bringing near.

As will be explained in later mishnahs, “waving” means taking the meal offering and extending it in every direction horizontally (front, right, back, left) before moving it up then down — similar to the manner in which we shake a lulav. “Bringing near” means the priest moves the meal offering close to the southwest corner of the altar before removing the handful that will be burned.

After laying out the possible combinations of these actions, our mishnah begins by listing those offerings that are brought near but not waved:

The fine-flour meal offering; the meal offering prepared in a pan; the meal offering prepared in a deep pan; the meal offering baked in an oven, which can be brought in the form of loaves or in the form of wafers; the meal offering of priests; the meal offering of the anointed priest; the meal offering of gentiles; a meal offering brought by women; the meal offering of a sinner.

This list happens to be nearly identical with the list of mincha offerings that contain both oil and frankincense, with the singular addition of the meal offering of a sinner. The first three categories are derived fairly straightforwardly from Leviticus 2:8, where it states with regard to them, “When you present to God a grain offering that is made in any of these ways, it shall be brought to the priest, who shall take it up to the altar.” These, arguably are our most paradigmatic meal offerings — and the first ones introduced by the Torah — include all the possible ingredients and both possible rituals. The other examples — the offering of priests and the anointed priest, that of gentiles, the sotahoffering (brought by women), and the meal offering of a sinner — are derived via several methods in our Gemara. However, some items on the list are disputed:

Rabbi Shimon says: The meal offering of priests and the meal offering of the high priest do not require bringing near the altar, due to the fact that there is no removal of a handful in their sacrifice, and there is a principle that with regard to any meal offering where there is no removal of a handful in their sacrifice, there is also no bringing near.

For the meal offerings of the normal priests and of the high priest, one doesn’t remove a handful to burn and consume the remainder. Rather, the entire offering is burnt on the altar. Rabbi Shimon believes that the act of “bringing near” is associated with the subsequent act of removing a handful and placing it upon the altar to be offered. For these sacrifices, which are placed on the altar in their entirety, they can be brought to the altar in a non-ceremonial fashion.

Our next mishnah will go on to list the offerings that are brought near and waved, or only waved, or neither. By the end of this chapter, it’ll be far easier to picture the diverse array of meal offerings we’ve now been discussing for 60 pages.

Read all of Menachot 60 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 12, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.