Zevachim 30

Like many people, I occasionally fumble my words. Addressing my child recently at dinner, I said: “Would you like your pasta … some cheese melted on your pasta?” This wasn’t a big deal. My kid figured it out what I was asking and dinner was delicious. 

I am lucky that, in my daily life, I utter no speech-acts that pertain to the dedication of sacrifices. The rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud were deeply invested in the significance of every single word a Jew would speak (or even think!) when dedicating their sacrifices, and in those circumstances linguistic fumbles could cause serious problems. While asking about a child’s pasta dinner doesn’t require precision, dedicating a gift to God does.

Today’s page is still discussing Mishnah Zevachim 2:5 which contains some expressions that look a bit like my pasta blurt:

If one performed one of the sacrificial rites and said (aloud or in their head) that they would eat “an olive bulk outside its designated area, an olive bulk the next day;” “an olive bulk the next day, an olive bulk outside its designated area;” “half an olive bulk outside its designated area, half an olive bulk the next day;” or “half an olive bulk the next day, half an olive bulk outside its designated area” — the offering is disqualified and there is no liability for karet for burning or partaking of it.

The Hebrew in this mishnah, much like my speech at dinner, is stilted — much like fumbled speech. There are no conjunctions between phrases like “an olive bulk outside its designated area” and “an olive bulk the next day.” All four of these statements that disqualify a sacrifice read in the Hebrew as run-on sentences, much like my own unfortunate “pasta … some cheese melted on your pasta” attempt at communication.

In the Talmud, the rabbis seek to make sense out of this mishnah. How do we understand these run-on sentences with their odd phrasing? The rabbis look to Mishnah Temurah 5:4 as precedent:

If one had two animals standing before him, one a burnt offering and one a peace offering, and he said with regard to another non-sacred animal of his: “This animal is hereby the substitute of the burnt offering, the substitute of the peace offering” — then that animal is the substitute of the burnt offering. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir.

Rabbi Yosei said: If that his intent from the outset was that this animal would be the substitute of both a burnt offering and a peace offering, since it is impossible to produce two designations simultaneously and one designation must precede the other, his statement is effective, and the animal is the substitute of both a burnt offering and a peace offering.

But if it was only after he said: “This animal is hereby the substitute of the burnt offering,” that he reconsidered and said: “This animal is hereby the substitute of the peace offering,” then that animal is the substitute of a burnt offering alone.

Once again, we have an oddly repetitive and illogical sentence: “This animal is hereby the substitute of the burnt offering, the substitute of the peace offering.” What did the speaker intend? Did they intend the animal to substitute for both offerings? Or did they first intend for it to substitute for the burnt offering, and make a correction, saying it was a substitute for the peace offering? Rabbi Meir asserts that whatever came out of the speaker’s mouth first represented their original intention. The sages barely give credence to Rabbi Yosei’s interpretation that the speaker may have actually meant to say both. They imagine Rabbi Meir responding to Rabbi Yosei’s contention:

If he wanted both sanctities to take effect, he should have said: “A substitute for a burnt offering and a peace offering,” but he said instead: “A substitute for a burnt offering, a substitute for a peace offering.” Learn from his language that he originally intended for it to be a burnt offering, and he then retracted his first intention.

It is in this moment that the rabbis entertain the possibility that some nervous individual, amidst juggling all the little details of performing the rituals of a sacrifice, might have blurted out the wrong idea and tried to take back their words.

And perhaps it is not just nervous people offering sacrifices. As our page today winds down, the text recalls a sage who had studied in the land of Israel — perhaps it was Ulla, or perhaps it was Rav Oshaya — beginning to question whether the way that the Babylonian rabbis have been quoting Mishnah Zevachim 2:5 is correct at all. We don’t always get it right the first time.

Read all of Zevachim 30 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on October 14, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.