Menachot 83

The Fertile Crescent is a region spanning modern-day Iran to the Sinai desert, famous for its rich soil and biodiversity. This region was where agriculture was invented and the world’s first cities were built. It is also where the Babylonian rabbis lived. 

We can imagine that Jews living in this region might have wanted to offer the wheat and barley they grew at home as mincha (grain) offerings at the Temple in Jerusalem. But could they? The mishnah on today’s daf teaches: 

All communal and individual meal offerings may come from the land of Israel and from outside the land of Israel, from the new crop and from the old — except for the omer and the two loaves (of Shavuot) as they come only from the new crop and from the land of Israel…

Leviticus 23 teaches specifically that when the Israelites reach the promised land and reap their harvest, they are to bring the first sheaf (omer) to the priest, and then another offering of two loaves seven weeks later (on Shavuot). The omer and the two loaves of Shavuot must therefore come from grain harvested inthe promised land. Everything else, says the anonymous rabbi quoted in our mishnah, can be brought from grain grown anywhere. 

What this means is that someone who comes to the Temple from Babylonia, or Antioch, or Rome can bring grain they grew themselves, or grain their region is famous for. These grains, not grown in the holy land, can be made holy through being offered in the Temple. What we bring from the diaspora as part of our complex relationships with God, the Jewish people and our own geographic regions can indeed become part of the official Temple service. 

But before those of us living in diaspora start harvesting our grain in anticipation of a third Temple, let’s look at the end of the mishnah. 

And all come only from the optimal-quality grain. And which places have the optimal grain for them? Mikhmas and Zoneha are graded alpha for fine flour. Secondary to them is Afaraim in the valley. All the regions were valid, but it is from here that they would bring.

Rabbi Joshua Kulp explains that Mikhmas is in the territory of Benjamin, Zoneha is in the territory of Judah and Afaraim is in that of Issachar. All three locations from which grain was actually brought are thus in the original territory of the 12 tribes.  The mishnah concludes by affirming that one could, in theory, bring grain from anywhere. But in practice, the best grain is grown in the land of Israel, and so that is where it was sourced from. 

The mishnah offers us a challenging contradiction: a legal affirmation that the grain from anywhere is appropriate for a meal offering, and a practical insistence that the best, and therefore only source of grain is one of these three regions in Israel. To properly fulfill this mitzvah, then, diaspora grain just isn’t good enough. People in the diaspora are welcome to bring a meal offering at the Temple in Jerusalem — but they need to make sure to buy the grain once they get there. 

Read all of Menachot 83 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 4, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.