Yoma 33 a, b

After my diatribe regarding the sacrifice of animals as described in yesterday's daf, today we learn a bit more: it is preferable to fully sever either the two organs in an animal or the one organ in a bird.  This is not because it causes less suffering to the creature.  It is not even because the second priest must be given the opportunity to complete the slaughter.  Instead it is because the rabbis believe that it is better to fully cut the windpipe/gullet because the blood will be allowed to flow more freely.  No blood to be sprinkled will be wasted.

I'll leave that for now.  In amud (a), the rabbis tell us a new and different order of the Temple service.  We learn in a note that this version is not considered halacha, though Abba Shaul lived through the destruction of the second Temple.  Abaye's version, described in yesterday's daf, is not the halachic version, either, though the rabbis spend some time questioning the logic of his suggestions.  A rabbinic order of events is taken as law.

During this discussion, the rabbis consider the removal of ashes from the menorah which is followed by removal of ashes from the inner Altar.  Reish Lakish shares an important thought: "ain ma'avirin al hamitzvot".  This means that it is prohibited to avoid performing a mitzvah because we are eager to perform another mitzvah.  My reading of this concept suggests that the existence of time is both a practical reality and a philosophical necessity.  We cannot put aside one mitzvah that is immediately available to us to perform another mitzvah first in a sequence of mitzvot.  Perhaps the meaning of Reish Lakish's phrase is also dependent upon knowledge of which mitzvot are somehow 'preferable'.

Amud (b) moves beyond time (well, not really) to explore the issue of place.  When we are choosing which mitzvah to perform, we are now taught to consider the order in which we encounter mitzvot.  For example, tefilin should be stored so that we see the tefilin shel yad before the tefilin shel rosh, as we are meant to don the former first.  If we see the tefilin shel rosh first, we are tempted to perform that mitzvah immediately, which is prohibited.  Similarly, the High Priest was meant to perform mitzvot in the sanctuary based upon the order in which he encountered them: first he would see the Altar, then the menorah and the table.

The remainder of amud (b) is focused on the removal of ashes and the sprinkling of blood.  Rabbis argue which was performed first and why; many proof texts are offered to support their opinions.  One interesting point that arises is Reish Lakish's hermeneutic principle regarding repetition.  He suggests that a word or phrase that is repeated without obvious reason is in fact 'misplaced'; one of the two identical words is meant to refer to another sentence.  Today's daf explores the words, "in the morning" which are repeated without an obvious reason.

It is amazing to me that the rabbis allowed each other to create rules that suited their interpretations.  Of course, we do the same continually in modern society.  We change our own rules to suit our purposes, whether those are interpretations or beliefs or ideologies.  At least the rabbis' rulebending is easy to reference and understand.  We come from a tradition that insists on integrity, even when we are far less than perfect.