The mishnah on yesterday’s daf finally clarified exactly how the sacrificial rite of waving is performed:
He extends the offerings to each of the four directions and brings them back, then raises and lowers them, as it is stated: “Which is waved, and which is heaved up.” (Exodus 29:27)
The priest puts their hand below the offering and lifts it into the air, extending it in each of the cardinal directions, then up and down. On today’s daf, the rabbis offer several interpretations of the ritual’s significance:
Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba says that Rabbi Yohanan says: He extends the lambs and brings them back in order to dedicate them to the One to Whom the four directions belong. He raises and lowers them in order to dedicate them to the One to Whom the heavens and the earth belong.
According to Rabbi Yohanan, waving is a symbolic act, meant to acknowledge that the entire world, in every direction, is God’s domain. The offering is meant to honor the One to whom the entire world belongs.
Another interpretation:
In the West, they taught the idea like this: Rabbi Hama bar Ukva says that Rabbi Yosei bar Rabbi Hanina says: He extends the lambs and brings them back in order to request a halt to harmful winds. Similarly, he raises and lowers them in order to halt harmful dews.
Rather than a symbolic acknowledgement of God’s dominion, for Rabbi Yosei, waving is gesturing at a request from God: not to bring devastating weather from any direction, be it harsh winds from the four cardinal directions or excessive dews from the heavens or earth.
Another Rabbi Yosei zeroes in on the relevance of this teaching:
Rabbi Yosei bar Rav Avin says: That is to say that a non-essential mitzvah helps prevent calamity, as waving is a non-essential mitzvah; and nevertheless, waving halts harmful winds and dews.
Rabbi Yosei bar Rav Avin points out that Rabbi Yosei bar Rabbi Hanina’s suggestion is quite grand: The act of waving the loaves can halt natural disasters! From this, Rabbi Yosei bar Rav Avin suggests a more general principle: that non-essential mitzvot, though apparently minor, can still inspire God’s mercy.
The rules of waving are then extrapolated to another case:
Rava says: And one should conduct himself similarly with a lulav.
Rava points out a striking similarity we’ve noted before: The waving of the sacrifice mirrors the way we shake the lulav. Interestingly, while for most of us the ritual of shaking the lulav is the helpful referent for this far less familiar case of waving sacrifices, in Tractate Sukkah, the Gemara uses our mishnah from Menachot to explain how the lulav is waved! So while the sacrifices may feel more foreign to us, for the rabbis waving was apparently a better known and more explicitly understood ritual.
The lulav is an interesting point of comparison for a more subtle reason. Sukkot, particularly the end of it, is focused on a request for rain; on Shemini Atzeret, when Sukkot concludes, we start adding “who makes the wind blow and brings down the rain” to our Amidah prayers. The shaking of the lulav is often understood as one of many rites connected with this plea. But early rains are harmful when the season is supposed to be dry. Therefore, when we wave the sacrifices during Shavuot in the early summer, Rabbi Yosei bar Rabbi Hanina argues that we pray for the exact opposite: minimal winds and only light dew.
Read all of Menachot 62 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 14, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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