One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
אִסּוּרֵי מִזְבֵּחַ
Issurei Mizbeiach · Chapters 5–7
Sefer Avodah · What may not rise in smoke, and why the altar demands your best
2
Ingredients barred from the fire: leaven and honey
1 grain
Of salt is enough to validate an offering
9
Grades of oil - only the first is supreme
3
Places salt is stored in the Temple
Ch 5Leaven, salt, and the stolen gift
- No leaven, no honey. Setting even the slightest amount afire with a sacrifice brings lashes; yet the same honey used only as fuel is permitted - it is the gift, not the substance, that is barred. (5:1-3)
- Salt on everything. A positive command to salt all sacrifices; offering with none brings lashes though the sacrifice stays valid. Even one grain suffices, and the salt must be communal - a man may not bring his own from home. (5:11-13)
- God hates a stolen offering. A robbed sacrifice is not merely rejected; if the theft became public, a stolen sin-offering brings no atonement, "so the altar not be said to consume stolen property." (5:7)
- A mitzvah born of sin. Tevel, new grain before the Omer, orlah, and vineyard-mixtures may not be brought - "a mitzvah that comes through a sin, which God despises" - though once consecrated they are sanctified only to be disqualified. (5:9)
RememberThe altar refuses the puffed-up and the sweet, and demands the plain, enduring salt - and it hates a gift that traveled a crooked road.
Ch 6The accompanying offerings must be sound
- Perfect, and so their companions. Not only the animal but its wine, flour, and oil must be unblemished and of high quality: "they shall be perfect, as should be their accompanying offerings." (6:1)
- Disqualified wine. Sweetened, smoked, or cooked wine is invalid; wine left uncovered overnight is barred, lest a snake left venom in it - just as the sacrifice may not change, the wine may not change. (6:9-10)
- Worms and dust. Flour is unfit if most of the kernels are worm-ridden; the treasurer plunges his hand in, and if dust clings, it is rejected until re-sifted. (6:11-12)
- Never redeemed. Invalid flour, wine, oil, wood, and vessels cannot be "stood before the priest," so unlike a blemished animal they are never redeemed. (6:4-5)
RememberA good thing left unguarded - the uncovered wine - is no longer fit; negligence disqualifies, not only active spoiling.
Ch 7Not the acceptable, but the best
- The minimum is not the mitzvah. Bringing a weak, unblemished sheep and saying "it has no blemish" earns Malachi's curse: "Cursed be the deceiver" who has a sound animal and offers a poor one. (7:1)
- An atlas of excellence. Rams from Moab, calves from Sharon, wine from Keruchim, flour from Michmas, oil from Tekoa - each region's finest, and only its finest. (7:2)
- Nine grades of oil. From the first drip of hand-crushed select olives down to the ninth pressing of half-rotted fruit - all valid for meal offerings, but "nothing surpasses the first." (7:8-9)
- Give your best to God. As Abel brought his choicest: a house of prayer finer than one's home, the hungry fed from the best of the table, the naked clothed in one's good garments. "All the choicest to God." (7:11)
RememberAll nine grades are valid - the ladder exists so you grow restless with the lower rungs and bring the first drip, not the ninth pressing.