If we’ve learned one thing over the course of this tractate, it’s that the details matter. From the moment an animal is designated to be a sacrifice, to the intentions held when it is being slaughtered, to where and when its blood is sprinkled and its meat is eaten, every little detail is an expression of God’s very detailed will. And on today’s daf, we see the importance of these details continue even after the sacrificial meat is eaten.
Here’s the situation under discussion: Let’s say you’re going to Jerusalem for a pilgrimage festival, and as part of the festival, you’ll be bringing a celebratory offering. As we’ve already learned, that offering has a time limit within which it must be eaten. But you traveled from far away, and you were limited in what you could bring, so you only brought one pot. You’re careful, so you’re going to make sure you eat all the sacrificial meat within its time limit, but do you have to be worried about the taste of the meat being imparted to the pot? Could a lingering meat taste be considered notar, meat left over after its prescribed time for eating?
The mishnah that began on yesterday’s daf taught:
Rabbi Tarfon says: If one cooked from the beginning of the pilgrimage festival, one may cook in it for the entire festival.
And the rabbis say: until the time of eating (is over).
Rabbi Tarfon thinks that the meat taste doesn’t count as notar, and so eating other meat cooked in the pot doesn’t violate the time limits on sacrificial meat. Consequently, you can wait to do a deep clean of the pot until after the holiday is over. The rabbis disagree and require a deep clean of the pot after the time of eating has passed even though doing a deep clean is inconvenient during a holiday.
The Talmud today is going to explain each party’s reasoning. After concluding that a biblical verse doesn’t make Rabbi Tarfon’s case effectively, the Talmud invokes the rabbinic understanding of the chemistry of dishwashing to support his position.
As Rav Nahman says that Rabba bar Avuh says: Each and every day becomes a purging agent for the other food.
Apparently, the rabbis believe that if a pot is in continuous use, each day’s new meat absorbs the meat flavors from the previous day, enabling them to be eaten in the appropriate time limit. It’s only after the holiday, when no new meat is added to the pot, that the sacrificial meat taste must be removed through scouring.
As we’ve seen, the rabbis disagree with Rabbi Tarfon. But why?
Rabbi Yohanan says in the name of Abba Yosei bar Abba: It is written (about a copper vessel in which a sin offering was cooked): “It shall be scoured and rinsed in water” (Leviticus 6:21); and it is written: “Every male among the priests may eat it.” How so? One waits with it until the end of the period of partaking and then performs scouring and rinsing on it.
The rabbis read two verses from Leviticus as insisting that one must scrub the pot at the end of the time period in which the meat is permitted — not because of some kind of flavor chemistry, but simply because God commanded it.
I’ll be honest: I don’t know very much about the logistics of washing copper pots in Roman Palestine. So let me leave us today with a set of questions to consider: Who was actually doing the scouring and rinsing of pots? Was this an activity done by the priests, or the men offering their festive sacrifices? Was it done by free women as part of their own participation in the holy work of the holiday? Or were these actions taken by enslaved men and women, participating in the work of a holiday that may or may not have been their own?
Does it change how we see the discussion of these laws if these are details that we are meant to take on for ourselves as an expression of our relationship to God, or if instead they are imposed on others to facilitate our own observance of the holiday? And what might it mean if those most commanded in religious observance are also most commanded to clean up after themselves? What might it mean to really see those who are exploited for one’s own religious observance?
Read all of Zevachim 97 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on December 20, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
