Menachot 58 – No Leaven and No Honey

The Torah emphasized that “Any leaven or any honey (meaning fruit or fruit juice) will be brought on the Altar” to teach that not only a volume of an olive, but also half-an-olive or less is also forbidden. It had to repeat the word “any.” Ordinarily, we can learn such lessons from one instance of the word “any” and apply it to other similar situations. Here, however, leaven and honey each have additional stringencies not found in the laws of the other, so the word “any” had to be repeated.

What happens if one does offer an offering from leaven and from honey on the Altar? Rava says that he incurs four sets of lashes, one for leaven, one for honey, one for mixtures of leaven, and one for mixtures of honey. However, Abaye says that he incurs no lashes at all, since one never incurs lashes for violating a generalized prohibition. In this case, generalized prohibition means that the Torah stated two preconditions, “any leaven and any honey,” and concluded with one prohibition, "do not offer." Some say, however, that at least one set of lashes he does incur.

Art: Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky - Charka of Honey