Hey there, and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one holistic page of Tomud each day.

And on today's pages, Menachot 12 and 13, we learn a

fascinating lesson about, well, about ourselves. It begins, as it so often does, with a rather

intricate halakhic discussion. Kinging off a new pyrick or a new chapter, the rabbis

examined the problems associated with having improper

thoughts while bringing the meal offering. We already know that Kavana or intentionality is key

when offering sacrifices and that if the priest gets his thoughts all mixed up thinking he's

making one kind of offering when he's really preparing another, the offering may be invalid.

But the rabbis teach us today there are concrete differences between offering meal and offering

animals. Because when you're offering animals, the only thing you're doing is just

strengthening the blood of the sacrifice and presto. But with a meal offering, there are two components,

the comets or the flour oil mixture removed by the Kohen, which we've spent some days talking

about, and the Levuna, or the frankincense. And so, the rabbis launch into an argument. What,

they ask, happens if during the Khmeritsa, the Cohen takes a fistful

of flour mixture, but then thinks instead that he's about to offer the Levuna, the frankincense.

The sages argue that this meal offering becomes a pigul or abhorrent, and that anyone eating

it will be severely punished, as is the law for someone who

had inappropriate thoughts while preparing the mincha sacrifice. Not so, says Rabbi Yossi.

The law, he argues, only applies to having inappropriate thoughts while performing one specific

service. And if you're thinking of another service, the frankincense, while preparing

the kamezza, well, your offering is sure invalid, but you didn't commit any real sin because

the frankincense is totally separate from the meal offering. There are two different things.

...