One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
תְּמוּרָה
Substitution 1-3
Sefer Korbanot · The prohibition that is flogged although no deed is done, the exact words that accomplish an exchange nobody is permitted to make, and what becomes of the animal that receives holiness it can never discharge
3
Prohibitions in the Torah flogged with no deed involved
40
Lashes, even for a transfer made on the Sabbath
1,000
Transfers from one consecrated animal, each one binding
9
Sets of lashes for ten animals when one is blemished
Ch 1Who can transfer holiness, and onto what
- Flogged for speech alone. One who transfers holiness is liable for lashes for every animal from which he transferred it, one of only three prohibitions that carry lashes without a deed, alongside a false or unnecessary oath and cursing a colleague using God's name; even a transfer made on the Sabbath carries forty lashes. (1:1)
- Partners and the community cannot transfer. A partner or the community is warned against transferring and is liable for lashes if he tries, but the second animal is not consecrated; two sons who inherit one sacrificial animal are partners, so it is offered and its holiness cannot be transferred, while a single heir can transfer. (1:1, 1:5)
- The power belongs to whoever gains the atonement. One who consecrated an animal so that a colleague, such as a nazirite, would gain atonement through it cannot transfer its holiness; the nazirite can, because the animal is his. (1:4)
- Fowl, meal offerings and Temple upkeep are excluded. The verses speak only of animals, and the tithe offering was singled out to teach that temurah governs an individual's offering brought on the altar, excluding communal and partnership sacrifices, animals consecrated for the upkeep of the Temple, and offerings of gentiles. (1:11, 1:12)
- A substitute cannot be substituted again. The holiness of an animal that received a transfer cannot be passed on, nor can the holiness of a consecrated animal's offspring, since the verse says it and its substitute and not the substitute of a substitute; yet from the original animal one may transfer a thousand times and is liable for each. (1:15)
RememberThree prohibitions in the Torah are flogged with nothing but a mouth. One of them is this one.
Ch 2The words, the hand, and the count of lashes
- The statement must point at something. Holiness transfers when the owner says of an ordinary animal he possesses that this should be substituted for this, or for this sin offering, or for the burnt offering he has at home; saying it should be substituted for a burnt offering with none in view, or that the holiness of this is conveyed to this, accomplishes nothing. (2:1)
- Everything turns on which animal his hand was on. With an ordinary animal and a blemished consecrated animal before him, a hand on the ordinary one makes a forbidden transfer and he is flogged; a hand on the consecrated one is not a transfer at all but redemption of the blemished animal with the ordinary one. (2:2)
- The permitted route is presumed. Three consecrated animals with one blemished, against three ordinary animals, in one statement, brings two sets of lashes and not three, because the blemished animal is presumed paired off by redemption; ten against ten with one blemished brings nine. (2:3)
- Two offerings named at once, and the order of intent. Naming the holiness of a burnt offering and a peace offering together is effective, the animal is sold and half the proceeds bring each substitute; but where the peace offering was added after the original statement, only the original words count, even if he retracted immediately. (2:4)
RememberA person will not abandon a permitted course of action and follow a forbidden one, and the court counts his lashes on that assumption.
Ch 3What becomes of the second animal
- Each substitute follows its original. The substitute of a burnt offering is offered if male, and if female or blemished it pastures, is sold, and a burnt offering is brought; a guilt offering's substitute pastures and buys freewill offerings; a sin offering's substitute is consigned to death; a peace offering's substitute is a peace offering in every respect. (3:1)
- Noon on the fourteenth of Nisan decides the Paschal substitute. Transferred before noon, it is not offered but pastures, is sold, and a peace offering is brought with the proceeds; transferred after noon, it is itself sacrificed as a peace offering. (3:1)
- The firstborn and the tithe keep their substitutes off the altar. The verse says of the firstborn that it is God's, taught to mean that it is sacrificed and its substitute is not; such a substitute pastures until blemished and is then eaten, the firstborn's going to the priests and the tithe's to its owners, and neither is ever redeemed. (3:1, 3:2)
- Neither offered nor redeemed, but left until it dies. Where a consecrated animal contracted a permanent blemish and was redeemed, and holiness was transferred from it afterwards, the transfer is binding, but the receiving animal is not sacrificed, because it comes from holiness already deferred, and not redeemed, because that holiness cannot encompass the redeeming entity. (3:4)
- Redeemed and still not ordinary. A substitute that was permanently blemished from the outset is redeemed, yet may not be sheared and no work may be done with it, since the verse authorizes transferring from the good to the bad and then calls the bad consecrated. (3:5)
RememberNothing here is ever released. Holiness is added, deferred, translated into money, or left standing in a field, but it is never taken back.