Leviticus 24:5–9 describes the showbread, 12 loaves baked from choice flour that were to be displayed on a table in the tabernacle (and later the Temple) each week. Chapter 11 of Tractate Menachot explores how they were prepared. The opening mishnah teaches:
The baker prepares the showbread in a mold. When he removes the showbread from the oven he places the loaves in a mold so that their shape will not be ruined.
As with all Temple rituals, uniformity matters. To make sure that the 12 loaves were all the same size and shape, molds were used. But the exact procedure is less clear from the mishnah’s statement. Was there one mold that was used to form the dough and then help the loaf hold its shape after baking? Or perhaps, given that bread expands, the mishnah is talking about two molds — one to shape the dough before baking and one to shape the loaf after it comes out of the oven.
The Gemara cites a beraita that suggests there were actually three molds:
The verse states: “And you shall set them” (Leviticus 24:6), which means to set them in a mold. There are three molds that are used in the Temple in the preparation of the loaves. First, the baker places the showbread in a mold while it is still dough. And second, there was a type of mold for the showbread in the oven, in which the loaves were baked. And when he removes the showbread from the oven, he places it in a third mold so that its shape will not be ruined.
You may not be surprised to learn that the verses from Leviticus that describe the showbread do not mention molds at all. Leviticus 24:6, which the beraita suggests is the source for the molds, speaks only about placing the bread on the table after preparation is complete. That it establishes a requirement for a single mold, let alone three, is an imaginative interpretation of the biblical text. Yet, it also makes sense that the Temple had vessels for this purpose.
Now we must consider a contradiction in the sources. It’s difficult to read the mishnah as referring to more than two molds. Yet the beraita suggests that there were three. When there is a difference of opinion between a mishnah and a beraita, it is not uncommon for the Gemara to account for the difference between them by assigning them to different schools of thought. Or, in other cases, suggesting that they are speaking about slightly different circumstances. But on today’s daf the Gemara simply presents the beraita and moves on. To the legal commentators (like Maimonides, for example), this suggests that beraita is clarifying the mishnah, not contradicting it, making clear that there were in fact three. It also perhaps signals that this material was slightly less studied and commented on.
Indeed, the lack of further discussion is characteristic of talmudic material that appears toward the end of a tractate. Sugyot that appear toward the beginning of tractates are known to be more complex and include more generational layers than those that appear later — suggesting they got more rabbinic attention. The reason for this may be that individual tractates were selected for study seasonally. It makes sense that those that appeared earlier in the term were covered more thoroughly. In the case of material at the back of the tractate, the lack of detailed discussion may simply be due to the fact that the term was ending before the work could be completed — and not that there was no more to say.
Read all of Menachot 94 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 15, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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