Pesachim 71 a, b

Today's daf focused on two different conversations.  The first was with regard to rejoicing on the Festivals.  We are commanded to rejoice, and rejoicing can mean eating & drinking (in the time of the Temple, Steinsaltz tells us that this was clearly the case), wearing clean clothes -- new clothes for women (and who washed the clothes  to make them clean for the rejoicing?? but I digress...), and drinking old wine.  The rabbis wish to clarify the logistics of rejoicing.  For example, if we must rejoice and eating sacrificial meat is rejoicing and the holiday falls on Shabbat, how do we know whether the roasting of the offering is permissible as it trumps Shabbat halachot?  And the rabbis mostly agree that eating raw and not roasted meat of the offering is no celebration.

The second conversation is a long, new mishna.  We learn about what to do when something goes wrong with the offering of the Paschal lamb.  The start of this mishna teaches that a Paschal lamb that is slaughtered on Shabbat inappropriately (ie. for the wrong 'reason'; when it was not actually a mitzvah to sacrifice that lamb), a sin offering is required as the halachot of Shabbat were broken without the excuse of a mitzvah.  However, the remainder of the mishna is filled with examples of unintentional offerings -- when there was an unknown illness and thus the lamb was later disqualified, or when an owner changed his mind about the slaughter but did not tell the person making the offering, for example.

The rabbis speak about communal offerings, as well.  It seems that there is greater leniency regarding offerings made by diverse groups of people as a rule.  Why would this be the case?  To create fewer potential issues within the larger community?  To encourage group registration for sacrifices?

One point that stood out for me was the notion of the disqualified blemished animal.  Steinsaltz reminds us of the origin of this rule in Leviticus (22:17-25) and further discussions (masechet Bechorot).  The basic idea is that we offer our best: our first, freshest, most enticing fruits; our perfectly unblemished animals.  Any permanent blemish disqualifies the animal (missing a limb, etc).  Any temporary blemish disqualifies the animal only temporarily; it can be offered up when the blemish is gone.  A tereifa is an animal that is disqualified because it has an illness that will cause it to die within the year.

With all of ancient Judaism's discrimination against people with 'blemishes' - when one is deaf, for example, one is considered to be a less competent witness in all matters - it should not surprise anyone that animals are treated similarly.  But today I thought about it slightly differently.  If we are offering an unblemished animal, so to speak, perhaps we are offering an animal that simply is worth a lot of money.  Just like the first fruits.  Perhaps the idea is that we are giving up something that we value with our pocketbooks.  Thus we are forced to care about the sacrifice, because we are giving up something worth money.  If we sacrifice an animal that costs us nothing, why would we care about losing it?

But that brings me back to people.  How can we possibly believe that a person with a 'blemish' is of less value?  People have no monetary value.  So a person with a developmental disability, for example, would not be counted as a witness in ancient Jewish law.  But shouldn't we be encouraged to think about people as valuable beyond our monetary worth?

I know that I am comparing two forms of 'demonstrating respect' that are not truly comparable: the disqualification of animals with blemishes in sacrificial rites and the devaluing of people with 'blemishes' as witnesses in court.  However, our treatment of people with disabilities continues to be horrendous, for the most part.  I hate to think that even ancient Jewish law might assert that physical 'perfection' is anything more than a hollow shell.