Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Meilah 9 – The Progression Of Bird Burned Offering

A bird burned-offering is either turtledove or a young pigeon. Its service consists of only two steps: slaughter to the back of the neck, called “melikah,” and squeezing of its blood on the Altar. Unlike sin-offering, it is missing the step of sprinkling the blood. After its crop with feathers is removed, it is completely burned on the Altar.

The bird becomes consecrated with an oral declaration, after which it is subject to the laws of misappropriation. Once it is killed through melikah, it can be disqualified in the same ways as a sin-offering, and after its blood is squeezed on the Altar, one becomes liable if he eats eat at the wrong time, in a wrong place, or if the Kohen had the wrong intentions when doing the service. Since it never becomes permitted for consumption, it has the prohibition of misappropriation until it is burned to ashes on the Altar, and is transported to the place of ashes outside Jerusalem. At this point its mitzvah is completed, and there is no misappropriation anymore.

The Talmud describes similar progressions for animal offerings, and delineates when the prohibition of misappropriation starts and stops for them.

Art: Sophie Gengembre Anderson - The Turtle Dove

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