We opened this chapter of Tractate Zevachim with a mishnah that declares one is liable for offering a sacrifice outside the Temple. The Gemara has since demonstrated the derivation for this prohibition. On today’s daf, however, a rabbinic dispute introduces a startling twist:
It was stated with regard to one who offers up an offering outside the courtyard today: Rabbi Yohanan says: He is liable. Reish Lakish says: He is exempt.
Rabbi Yohanan says that he is liable, as he holds that the initial consecration of the Temple sanctified it for its time and sanctified it forever.
Reish Lakish says that he is exempt, as he holds that the initial consecration of the Temple sanctified it for its time but did not sanctify it forever.
The talmudic tractates on sacrifice, of which this is the first, are largely devoted to examining laws that are no longer actionable. Often, these deeply argued pages offer little in the way of acknowledgment that the Temple is no longer standing and the system described has ground to a halt. However, every now and then the historical reality of the rabbis intrudes. In this case, Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish, two sages living in Roman Palestine around a century and a half after the Temple was destroyed, debate whether these prohibitions about sacrificing outside the Temple boundaries are still actionable in the absence of an actual Temple.
Rabbi Yohanan states that when the Temple was consecrated, that sanctity was indelibly attached to that location. Even though the structure has been destroyed, the holiness of the place remains. This opinion maps onto that of the earlier sage, Rabbi Yehoshua, in Mishnah Eduyot, as quoted by the Gemara:
Rabbi Yehoshua said: I heard that one sacrifices even if there is no Temple … This is due to the fact that the initial consecration sanctified the Temple and Jerusalem for their time and also sanctified them forever.
According to Rabbi Yehoshua, one may sacrifice in the location the Temple once stood, even though the structure is no longer there. As a corollary, sacrificing elsewhere remains strictly prohibited.
In contrast, Reish Lakish believes the sanctity inhered in the Temple, not the land on which it sat. Once that was destroyed, the holiness departed, and it is no longer a valid place for sacrifice. For him, the corollary is that the biblical prohibition on sacrificing outside the Temple courtyard therefore does not apply.
The Gemara initially maps Reish Lakish’s opinion onto that of Rabbi Eliezer’s in the same mishnah from Tractate Eduyot:
Rabbi Eliezer said: I heard that when they were building the (Second) Temple, they would fashion temporary curtains for the Sanctuary and temporary curtains for the courtyards. The difference was only that in the Sanctuary, the workers built the walls outside the curtains, without entering, and in the courtyards, the workers built the walls within the curtains.
Rabbi Eliezer states that at the time the Second Temple was being built, the workers hung curtains demarcating where the Temple and its courtyard would be constructed. Since his statement is juxtaposed to Rabbi Yehoshua’s, at first glance it seems that they’re disagreeing. And since Rabbi Yehoshua is making a claim about the Temple Mount’s enduring sanctity, Rabbi Eliezer must be claiming the sanctity is only temporary, just as Reish Lakish later states.
However, the Gemara dismisses this comparison. Ravina, a later rabbi, points out that Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua may have each just been passing on traditions from their teachers about the Temple, and their juxtaposition in the mishnah does not necessarily imply dispute. Therefore, it could be that both agree with Rabbi Yohanan, that the sanctification of the Temple and its location was permanent.
It’s likely due to this conclusion — as well as our general tendency to rule like Rabbi Yohanan against Reish Lakish — that Maimonides (Rambam) rules in accordance with Rabbi Yohanan’s position. In the Mishneh Torah, he declares that one who slaughters and sacrifices an animal outside the Temple courtyard in the present day is liable, since the sacrifices are indeed fit to be offered inside, even in the absence of a Temple.
However, this opinion isn’t uncontested: The Ra’avad, whose commentary on (and criticism of) the Rambam is incorporated into the text of the Mishneh Torah itself, rules like Reish Lakish, that the sanctification of the Temple was not permanent. He argued that only a future, messianic sanctification by God will impart permanent sanctity to the location.
Read all of Zevachim 107 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on December 30, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
