The mishnah on Zevachim 104a noted that offerings whose blood is sprinkled on the inner altar are subsequently taken out to be burned in the place of ashes. The mishnah further notes that the priests tasked with burning these animals are rendered impure in the process, as stated in Leviticus 16:27–28: “The bull of sin offering and the goat of sin offering … shall be taken outside the camp; and their hides, flesh, and dung shall be consumed in fire. The one who burned them shall wash those clothes and bathe the body in water — and after that may re-enter the camp.”
The rabbis wonder: When exactly is this impurity imparted? The latter clause of the mishnah addresses that question:
The priests would carry (the carcasses) on poles. When the first priests emerged outside the wall of the Temple courtyard and the latter priests did not yet emerge, the first priests render their garments impure, and the latter priests do not render their garments impure until they emerge. When both these and those priests emerged, they render their garments impure.
Rabbi Shimon says: They do not render their garments impure until the fire is ignited in the majority of the offerings.
Though everyone agrees that the priests who burn these animals are rendered impure, the rabbis dispute at what point in the process that happens. According to the first opinion, as soon as priests leave the Temple courtyard carrying the carcasses, they immediately become impure. Rabbi Shimon, however, states that the priests are only rendered impure once they have actually set the carcasses on fire and the fire has caught. His opinion makes more logical sense. The phrase “the one who burned them” in the verse seems to indicate that the impurity is connected to the actual act of burning, not the mere act of carrying the carcasses to the place of ashes.
On today’s daf, the Gemara comes to support the mishnah’s first opinion. It brings a beraita to explain:
From where are these matters derived? As the sages taught in a beraita: “They shall be carried forth outside the camp.” (Leviticus 16:27) Elsewhere, the verse states that such bulls and goats are burned outside three camps, whereas here, the verse states only that they are taken outside one camp. This serves to tell you: Once the offering emerges beyond one camp, one who carries it renders his garments impure.
With regard to the bull and goat of Yom Kippur, the Torah merely states that it should be taken “outside the camp.” This reference, by itself, is understood to mean outside the tabernacle (and later in Temple times, the Temple courtyard). Further down on today’s daf, the rabbis derive that the bull and goat carcasses are taken out of three camps (beyond the tabernacle, the Levite camp, and the Israelite camp). This derivation can be found on the second side of the daf. For now let’s take it as a given: The rabbis understand the Torah to be telling us that these carcasses were removed from not one sphere (the tabernacle/Temple) but three (the tabernacle/Temple, the Levite camp/Temple Mount, and the entire Israelite camp/Jerusalem). Ultimately, then, they were taken to the wilderness for disposal. And yet, this beraita notes, the Torah here only mentions bringing the carcasses outside one camp. The beraita then suggests that this connects to the next verse, “The one who burned them shall wash his clothes.” The juxtaposition teaches us that once one carries the carcasses out of the first “camp” — the Temple — they immediately become impure.
This interpretation is only necessary because of the rabbis’ other intricate derivations based on seemingly extraneous mentions of going “outside the camp.” Once they’ve established that each time this phrase is used unnecessarily it must be coming to teach us a new law, they’re forced to ascribe meaning to its usage in this verse, leading to a position that is on its face less than intuitive: When the verse says that a person who burns the bull or goat carcasses is rendered impure, it actually means someone who has begun carrying the carcasses out to be burned.
Read all of Zevachim 105 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on December 28, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
