Daily Talk
A man says six words over an ordinary ewe and takes forty lashes for a transgression that involved no deed at all. Then the law informs him that the six words worked. Both animals are holy now, the one he wanted to release and the one he brought forward in its place, and neither one is going home. Why forbid an exchange and then enforce it?
The Sin That Consecrates
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About This Talk
Chapter 1 establishes that transferring the holiness of a sacrificial animal is one of only three prohibitions in the Torah punished by lashes although no deed is involved, then works out who holds the power to make the transfer, from partners and heirs to priests and the High Priest, and which animals can give it or receive it. Chapter 2 fixes the exact words that accomplish the exchange, shows that the entire matter can turn on which animal a man's hand was resting on, and lowers the count of lashes wherever a permitted route to the same result was available. Chapter 3 follows the second animal to the end, offering some, pasturing and selling others, consigning the substitute of a sin offering to death, and leaving one animal that can be neither sacrificed nor redeemed to live out its life.