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A Yissachar / Zebulun Partnership in Loving Memory of Yishak ben Simcha A"H & Felicia bat Miriam A"H
Rabbi Joseph Dana

Torah Lecture

Mishnah Zevahim 3-5

Lectured by Rabbi Joseph Dana

Published
July 23, 2025
Duration
3:46
Lecture code
RJD-ZEVAHIM-3-5

This transcript was auto-generated and polished for readability. While we aim for accuracy, errors may occur. If you notice a mistake, please click to submit corrections.

This Mishnah discusses other cases in which improper kavanot (intentions) do not invalidate the korban (offering). The Mishnah says that if his intention, when he slaughters the korban, is to eat the fetus in the korban or the shilyah, which is the placenta that is surrounding the fetus, he does not make the korban pigul or even invalidate it if he intends to eat it outside the proper place for eating the korban or past the time he is allowed to eat it. The reason is that the fetus and the shilyah, the placenta, are not usually eaten by people. Therefore, if somebody has a kavanah about them, the kavanah is meaningless, because improper kavanot only affect things that are meant to be eaten. The fetus or the placenta are not normally eaten. Therefore, the next part of the Mishnah also discusses a type of intention that would not invalidate the korban, but based on a different rule.

When dealing with bird offerings, doves are not slaughtered like regular korbanot; melikah is done to them. The kohen (priest) takes his fingernail, the thumbnail, and cuts the back of the neck of the bird. That is how he does the Shechita (ritual slaughter) on them. If he does melikah on the korbanot inside the courtyard where they are supposed to be offered, but intends to eat the eggs in the body of the korban, of the bird, outside the courtyard or past the proper time that they are supposed to be eaten, he does not make the birds pigul. The eggs are considered separate entities from the bird, and therefore his intentions about the eggs have no effect on the bird, on the korban itself.

The milk of a female korban that was in the udders of the korban at the moment it was slaughtered, and the unlaid eggs of a turtledove that were in the body of the animal, of the dove, when the melikah was done to them: “Ein chayavin aleihen mishum pigul, notar (leftover sacrificial meat), ve-tamei (ritually impure).” A person is not subject to punishment of karet (spiritual excision) for eating them because of pigul, notar, or tamei if the animal, number one, became pigul because a person had the improper kavanah that he wants to eat the korban after the proper time. So if he did that and then drank the milk of the korban, or, if it was the bird, ate the korban and then ate the eggs, that is pigul. Or, if the animal was left over past the time for eating it and then he drank the milk or ate the eggs of the animal, or if he drank or ate them when he was in a state of tum'ah (ritual impurity), all of these things would normally be karet. But here, since the milk and the eggs are not considered to be part of the animal or the bird, a person would not be subject to karet. All of the prohibitions we mentioned would not apply to the milk or the eggs, only to the meat of the animal or the bird. Therefore, pigul, notar, and the fact that he was tameh would not kick in. Of course, these things would still be rabbinically prohibited to eat, but on a de'oraita (Torah-level) level, the person is not subject to karet.