A voluntary thanksgiving offering has two main ingredients: an animal and 40 loaves. Both are required, but as we learn on today’s daf, they are not of equal status:
Rabbi Abba says: If one volunteered to bring a thanksgiving offering and said, “This animal is a thanksgiving offering and this flour is designated for its loaves,” then if the loaves were lost, he brings other loaves. If the animal offering was lost, he does not bring another animal offering, and the loaves are not sacrificed.
After designating an animal and the accompanying loaves for sacrifice, a part of the sacrifice goes missing. If it is the loaves that are lost, they can simply be replaced by another set of loaves, and the sacrifice proceeds with the animal that was designated and the new set of loaves. But if the animal is lost, the loaves that were paired with the missing animal can no longer be sacrificed. They have been disqualified.
What is the reason for this asymmetry? The Gemara explains: The animal is the main part of the offering and the loaves come to accompany it. Therefore, if the loaves are lost, they can be replaced. But if the animal is lost, it cannot — all components of the offering are now unfit.
This differentiation between the animal and the loaves is true not just about the items themselves, but for money set aside for their purchase. As Rava teaches:
In the case of one who separated money for his thanksgiving offering and some of the money remained after one purchased the animal, one purchases loaves to accompany it with the remaining money. If one separated money for the loaves of the thanksgiving offering and some of the money remained after the loaves were purchased, one may not purchase an animal with the remaining money.
Rava agrees that the animal is the essence of the sacrifice. As a result, he holds that leftover money that has been designated to buy the animal can be used to purchase the loaves. What has been designated for the main component can be used for the that which accompanies it. However, the reverse is not acceptable: Money designated for the accompaniment cannot be used to purchase the main element.
Although the Gemara does not go there, one could argue that Rava’s argument is counterintuitive. Shouldn’t it be prohibited to use funds that have been designated for a higher purpose (the purchase of the sacrificial animal) for a lower one (the purchase of the loaves)? Shouldn’t we be allowed to take funds designated for a lower purpose (the loaves) and reassign them to a higher one (the animal)?
Rava’s logic follows a different path: If one overbudgeted for the animal, the remainder can be used to complete the sacrifice and acquire the trimmings that make it whole. However, superfluous funds that have been designated for the purchase of secondary items take on, as it were, the status of the item that they were meant to acquire and can no longer be used to purchase a higher-status item.
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