All of Tractate Zevachim concerns animal sacrifice. As someone who didn’t grow up in a world in which Jews practiced animal sacrifice, I have a lot of questions. How did Jews experience bringing and eating sacrifices? What did they think it meant for God? Did the Temple in Jerusalem smell like an amazing barbecue joint all the time?
But as we’ve already seen, for the rabbis, the first topic that must be explored is that of intention. For animal sacrifices to function in ritually correct ways, they must be brought and slaughtered with the correct intentions. From both the rabbis’ stories, and from descriptions by Josephus and other first-century Jewish authors, we know that the Temple would have been packed, especially on holidays. Hordes of people were accompanying animals meant to fulfill their obligations to bring thanks, celebrate the holiday, conclude a vow, or atone for a sin. The Temple priests would have been extremely busy helping Israelites fulfill their ritual commitments.
Given this semi-organized chaos, I can imagine that it might be difficult to keep track of exactly which animal was meant for which purpose, or which animal belonged to which person. But on today’s daf, the rabbis insist that in order for a sacrifice to work, the priest doing the slaughtering must correctly intend that the slaughter fulfill a particular sacrificial obligation for a particular owner. But why? The Talmud roots its answers in close readings of biblical verses.
From where do we derive that we require that slaughter be for its own sake? As the verse states: “And if his offering is a sacrifice of peace offerings” (Leviticus 3:1), that slaughter must be for the sake of a peace offering.
The word for offering in the verse in Leviticus is zevach, which also means sacrifice. The rabbis derive from this that not just the sacrifice but the act of sacrificing the animal must include the correct intentions as to the type of sacrifice being brought. Indeed, not just the slaughter but all the other elements of bringing a sacrifice must intend for it to fulfill a particular kind of sacrificial obligation:
The verse states: “Who sacrifices the blood of the peace offering” (Leviticus 7:33) – that collection (of the blood) must be for the sake of a peace offering…The verse states: “Who sprinkles the blood of the peace offering” (Leviticus 7:14) –that the sprinkling must be performed for the sake of a peace offering.
So the priests must have the correct intentions when it comes to the type of sacrifice. But from where do the rabbis derive the obligation for the priests to correctly intend that the sacrifice fulfill a specific person’s obligation?
Rav Pinhas, son of Rav Ami, says: The verse states: “And the meat of the sacrifice of his thanksgiving peace offering shall be eaten on the day of his offering” (Leviticus 7:15) — that its slaughter must be for the sake of a thanks offering. If (this language) is not needed for the matter of deviation with regard to the type of offering, as we derived from there, apply it to the matter of deviation with regard to the owner.
Rav Pinchas notes that the most obvious rule that could be derived from Leviticus 7:15 is that the slaughter of an offering must be intended to fulfill that type of offering. But we already know that from Leviticus 3:1. If you believe, as do the rabbis, that nothing in the Torah is redundant, then Leviticus 7:15 must be coming to teach something else entirely — it must be teaching us that the priest must intend for the slaughter to fulfill the correct owner’s obligation.
The Talmud’s discussion will continue, but it’s worth taking a step back and looking at the whole. On the one hand, the rabbis root each element of their understanding of animal sacrifice in the precise language of Leviticus. On the other hand, Leviticus never explicitly discusses the importance of the priests’ intentions. Instead, the focus on intention emerges in the rabbinic period, and is then rooted in earlier biblical texts. For the Talmud on today’s daf, it’s not enough just to do the right thing — you have to intend correctly as well.
Read all of Zevachim 4 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 18, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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