Daily Talk
A man comes to the altar with the finest honey in one hand and a few coarse grains of salt in the other, and the Torah wants the plain gift, not the sweet one. Burn even a speck of honey with a sacrifice and you have transgressed; leave off the salt and you are lashed. These chapters inspect leaven and honey and stolen offerings and uncovered wine, and then ask the only question that ever mattered: what is truly fit to be brought near, and what only looks like it is?
The Choicest of the Flock
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About This Talk
Issurei Mizbeiach 5 through 7 move from the ingredients barred from the fire - leaven, honey, the stolen gift, the mitzvah born of a sin - to the demand that even the accompanying wine, flour, and oil be sound, and finally to the crown of it all: not the acceptable, but the best. All nine grades of oil are valid, yet the Rambam builds the ladder so you will bring the first drip and not the ninth pressing, and give God what you would have wanted to keep.