Tractate Menachot (; "Meal Offerings") is the second tractate of the Order of Kodashim. It has

Gemara The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) is an essential component of the Talmud, comprising a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aram ...

in the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewi ...

and a Tosefta. Menachot deals with the rules regarding the preparation and presentation of grain-meal, oil, and drink offerings, including the meal-offering that was burnt on the altar and the remainder that was consumed by the priests as specified in the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

( and on); the bringing of the '' omer'' of barley (), the two loaves (), and the showbread ().as offerings in the

Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accord ...

. The tractate also draws upon verses in Numbers chapters 5, 6, 28, and 29.

Summary

The thirteen chapters of the Mishnah tractate cover the following topics:

Unfit offerings (''pasul'' and ''piggul)''

* 1. Intention to make an offering valid. Omissions that invalidate the offering, such as a time frame that cause a ''piggul''. Taking the grain handful ("''ḳometz''") The incense. * 2. Further details concerning ''pasul'' and ''piggul''. * 3. How a meal-offering remains kosher or becomes pasul. How other things are rendered invalid, such as the sections of the Torah in a mezuzah or in tefillin.

Mode of sacrifice

* 4. More ways to cause ''pasul'' status. Israelites in the wilderness sacrificed and consecrated the altar, table, and candlesticks. Meal-offering of the high priest. * 5. Preparation of the meal-offerings, Additional ingredients. Offerings brought near the altar ("haggashah") and offerings waved ("tenufah"). * 6. Offerings from which only a handful is taken. Offerings that are placed entire upon the altar. * 7. The thanksgiving offering ("todah") and the offering of the Nazarites. Measures that changed, and the "Jerusalem" measure as one-sixth larger than the old "midbari" (from the desert) measure. * 8. Materials for different meal-offerings, such as places for the best flour and the best oil. Where the best wine was found and how it was tested. * 9. Measures used in the Temple for flour, oil, and wine. Drink-offerings. Sacrifices for which drink-offerings were required. Laying of hands upon a sacrificial animal (" semicha").

Wave-offering

* 10. Omer offering or wave offering, including timing, source, ceremony, and its offering. The law introduced by R. Yohanan ben Zakkai after the destruction of the Temple. * 11. The pentecostal bread and the showbread, including the distribution of it among the

priests A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, ...

. * 12. Exemption from meal- and drink-offerings. Offerings without exemptions. Vows (''nedarim'') of meat- and drink-offerings.

Intention for offerings

* 13. Vows of offerings that are not strictly defined. Prohibitions on offerings regarding the temple of Onias and its priests. The conclusion of the chapter and of the treatise runs: "It is immaterial whether one sacrifices much or little so long as his mind is intent on God."

Order of the chapters

As noted by Singer and Lauterbach, "The order given above is that of the editions of the Mishnah and of many manuscripts of the Talmud (compare the observation of R. Bezalel Ashkenazi at the end of the ''Shiṭṭah Meḳubbeẓet'' on Menaḥot, in the Vilna edition of the Talmud, p.109b). On the other hand, all the printed editions of the Talmud have the chapter beginning "R. Ishmael," given above as the tenth, in the sixth place, the remaining chapters occurring in the order given above."

Notable passages

Tosefta

The Tosefta (13:18-22) discusses greed and violence done by the priests, which is said to have contributed to the destruction of the Second Temple, due to baseless hatred.

Jerusalim Talmud

There is no Jerusalem Talmud gemara on tractate Menaḥot, though the medieval ''

Tosafot The Tosafot, Tosafos or Tosfot () are Middle Ages, medieval commentaries on the Talmud. They take the form of critical and explanatory glosses, printed, in almost all Talmud editions, on the outer margin and opposite Rashi's notes. The authors o ...

'' mentions a passage that is found in tractate Yoma of the Yerushalmi. (109b, s.v. ''nizdamen'').

Babylonian Talmud

Besides the main topics, summarized above, the Talmud contains noteworthy deliberations and narratives on other matters, such as: Chapter 3: Scribal guidelines for Hebrew letters and for writing Torah, mezuzah, and tefillin parchments. 29b: A notable sugya is the homiletical narrative when Moses sees Rabbi Akiva. It begins with Moses finding God putting calligraphy "crowns" on the letters of the Torah, for the sake of

Rabbi Akiva Akiva ben Joseph (Mishnaic Hebrew: ; – 28 September 135 CE), also known as Rabbi Akiva (), was a leading Jewish scholar and sage, a '' tanna'' of the latter part of the first century and the beginning of the second. Rabbi Akiva was a leadin ...

. Moses then sees Akiva as a teacher and as a martyr due to Roman persecution. This sugya has intrigued contemporary Jewish studies scholars. Chapter 4: Includes a discussion of tzitzit. 53a-b: A sugya with the style of R. Ezra's ''midrash'' aggadah, with the notion that God was justified before Abraham for the destruction of the Temple and the exile to Babylonia. Compares the people of Israel to an olive-tree. 99b: The attitude of Rabbi Ishmael toward Hellenism. 109b: A sugya about the origin of the temple of Onias. Jacob Zallel Lauterbach and Isadore Singer drew attention to its concluding episode:

At the hour of his death the high priest Simon the Just appointed his younger but learned son Onias to be his successor. Onias renounced his claim in favor of his elder brother Shimei. Onias, however, secretly grudged him his position and endeavored to supplant him. Consequently when Shimei, who was inexperienced in the priestly service, asked Onias to instruct him in its duties, the latter misled him into putting on a woman's cap and girdle to officiate in, and then told the priests that Shimei had promised his beloved to officiate in her cap and girdle on the day of his installation in office. When the priests threatened to kill Shimei for thus trifling with the service, he told them how the matter really stood. Thereupon the priests sought the death of Onias, but he fled to
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
and there built his temple.

110a: The gemara ends on a positive note, as is common with Talmudic tractates, by discussing the reputation of the Jewish community among other nations, their awareness of God, and positive attributes of Torah scholars. For example, Rabbi Yohanan says that studying the halakhah (rabbinic law) is as worthy as conducting the offerings in the Temple, which is the subject of this tractate. For the last mishnah, the gemara comments on whether God needs sacrifices and offerings.