Imagine the Temple courtyard on a sunny day some 2,000 years ago — scores of priests going about their work, hundreds of livestock bleating and squawking, thousands of people talking, corralling their animals, engaging in commerce and more. It would have been wholly — and holy — chaotic.
Amidst this tumult, it’s not surprising that offerings would occasionally become intermingled. A blemished animal deemed unfit for sacrifice might break away from its owner and join a flock of permitted animals, making it all but impossible to identify the interloper. To address this possibility, Jewish law sets a general rule of batel b’rov — a small amount of something prohibited found amidst a much larger amount of the same permitted item is nullified.
Today, as the discussion moves from animals that moo to produce that grows, this concept is tested as the rabbis bring a list of seven items that are so unique they cannot be nullified, no matter how large the amount of permitted items surrounding them.
And the rabbis say: Only six items render (their mixture) prohibited. Rabbi Akiva says: There are seven. And they are: Nuts with brittle shells (alternatively: hazelnuts from Perech), and pomegranates from Badan, and sealed barrels of wine, and beet greens, and cabbage stalks, and Greek gourd. Rabbi Akiva adds: also, loaves of a homeowner.
At this point, we likely all have the same question: Why these specific objects? What’s so special about beet greens or cabbage stalks? The Gemara offers one explanation:
That which is fit (to be forbidden) due to the prohibition against eating the fruit of a tree during the first three years after its planting as orla and that which is fit (to be forbidden) due to diverse kinds planted in a vineyard.
The rabbis explain that the issue here isn’t batel b’rov, but rather two other points of Jewish law. The first is orla, the prohibition against eating fruit from a tree until three years after its planting. Since nuts with brittle shells (or Perech hazelnuts), pomegranates and grapes are all subject to the law of orla, they’re on this list, meaning that any amount, no matter how small, would invalidate an entire batch of similar items.
The second law is that of kilayim: improper mixing of diverse kinds of produce by planting them together in a field. Because beets, cabbages and gourds are all subject to this law, any amount of those items would nullify an entire crop that would be otherwise permitted.
Other commentators explain that these particular items are special in and of themselves. Rashi says these items are particularly expensive or large and therefore important enough as to “take over” the entire mixture, no matter the percentage. This explanation also sheds light on the specificity of three delicacies listed: Perech hazelnuts, Badan pomegranates and Greek gourds.
The end of the list is curious, though. What prompts Rabbi Akiva’s addition of homemade bread?
The medieval commentator Tosafot explains that home-baked loaves are typically not only large, but of great value to the home baker, who puts more time and attention into producing them than a commercial baker. (I feel this way about my own challahs.) Accepting Rabbi Akiva’s suggestion might also indicate that the list itself is fluid. In his commentary on our daf, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz notes that according to Maimonides, these seven are merely examples. In reality, any items can be granted this status if they are singularly important, a designation that changes based on the place and time.
Maimonides might be on to something. In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic volume The Little Prince, the fox notes that if the prince tames him, he will cease to be like all the thousands of other foxes. What would be on your list of items that seem ordinary, but to you are unique in all the world? Once you have that list, consider the one on our daf. We may never be lucky enough to eat a Badan pomegranate, but I’d venture that if there were one in the supermarket bin, you might be able to pick it out as special.
Read all of Zevachim 72 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on November 25, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
