One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
קָרְבַּן פֶּסַח
Paschal Offering 6-8
Sefer Korbanot · Who is turned away and who is let through, what changes when the whole nation is impure, and the rule that the fire must touch the meat with nothing in between
7
Day of purification that still bars him from the first Pesach
1
Extra impure person tips the whole nation into offering in impurity
15
Nisan, the night the roasted meat must be eaten
2
Paschal lambs never roasted together, not even a kid and a lamb
KP 6Who is pushed off to the second Pesach
- The test is the table, not the knife. Anyone who will be unable to eat on the night of the fifteenth is postponed; one impure from an animal carcass on the fourteenth immerses, the offering is slaughtered for him, and he eats when his day of impurity closes at nightfall. (6:1)
- The seventh day is still too early. One on the seventh day of purification from corpse impurity, already immersed and sprinkled with the ashes and fit to eat sacrificial food by nightfall, is nevertheless postponed to the second Pesach, as derived from Numbers 9:6. (6:2)
- Rabbinic decrees give way before karet. The impurity of a beit hapras is Rabbinic, so he sifts as he walks and, finding no bone, slaughters and eats; the restrictions of aninut at night fall for the same reason, and the onein immerses and partakes. (6:8, 6:9)
- The depths forgive the walker, not the rider. Impurity likened to the depths leaves a man pure for the Paschal offering even if the corpse spanned the road, but only when he went on foot; riding a beast or carrying a burden he is impure, since he cannot have failed to touch, move, or stand over it. (6:11)
RememberThe doubt nobody on earth could have known is waived; the doubt you could not possibly have avoided is not.
KP 7What changes when the majority is impure
- Individuals are postponed, a community is not. If the majority of the people, or the priests, or the sacred vessels are impure through a human corpse, nothing is deferred; all offer on the first Pesach, the impure together with the pure, in a state of impurity. (7:1)
- A single person tips the whole nation. Half pure and half impure, each half offers separately in its own state; if the impure exceed the pure by even one, everyone offers in impurity. (7:2)
- Count at the gate, not at the table. The majority is not reckoned from all who will eat, since twenty may be enrolled on one lamb and send a single man to slaughter for them; it is reckoned from those outside seeking to enter the Courtyard, and the count is made before the first group enters. (7:6)
- Slaughtered in purity, and then not eaten. If it was slaughtered in purity and the majority became impure before the blood was poured, the blood is poured on the altar and the offering is not eaten, a decree lest in a later year it be eaten after impurity struck following the pouring. (7:9)
RememberWhether impurity is suspended or fatal turns on what was true at the moment of the knife.
KP 8Roasted with fire, and with nothing else
- The meat alone discharges the mitzvah. Eating it on the night of the fifteenth is a positive commandment; matzah and bitter herbs are not indispensable, an olive's worth suffices, and the finest way is to eat it in satiation after the festival peace offering. (8:1, 8:2, 8:3)
- Na and mevushal both bring lashes. Lightly roasted meat, or meat cooked in water, any liquid, or fruit juice, brings lashes, and only one set even if it was both, since both sit inside a single verse; raw meat nullifies a positive commandment, and meat roasted to charcoal is exempt. (8:4, 8:6, 8:7)
- Every liquid except water. It may be basted with wine, oil, honey, other liquids and fruit juice, and dipped in them once roasted; water alone is excluded, and roasting followed by cooking or cooking followed by roasting brings liability. (8:8)
- Heat is not fire. Not on stoneware and not on a metal spit, though a perforated vessel through which the flame reaches the meat is permitted; an oven whose coals were raked out, or lime, clay, or the hot springs of Tiberias, is forbidden, because that is not roasted with fire. (8:9, 8:10)
RememberThe objection was never the vessel. It was whatever stood between the flame and the meat.