ולא יחללו את שם קדשי, “so that they will not profane My holy Name.” The whole purpose of a sacrificial offering is to honour My holy name; anyone presenting such while in a state of ritual impurity will desecrate it instead of honouring it.

אשר הם מקדישים, “which they are sanctifying;” and do not profane. The heading of this verse applies to both My holy name and the offerings sanctified in its honour.

והוא צרוע או זב, and he is afflicted with tzoraat, or has had involuntary seminal issue;” The Torah here uses a form of construction known as lo zu af zu, “not only this but even that,” meaning that not only the more severe affliction but even the relatively minor affliction is also a cause for the prohibition described, i.e. not to eat holy things. Not only a ritual impurity originating in one’s own body is the cause of the prohibition but merely coming into contact with a corpse are similarly a cause for this prohibition. On the other hand, not only contact with a corpse but even a seminal emission from one’s own body that can be purified by immersion in a ritual bath on the same evening, is also included in this legislation. Conversely, even a ritual impurity due merely to an external cause such as touching a corpse, is similarly triggering this prohibition.

עד אשר יטהר, “until he will become purified.” A process completed by the setting of the sun. (Compare verse 7 in our chapter)

אשר יטמא לו, “whereby he may become ritually unclean;” the word לו in this verse means בשבילו, “on its account,” on account of the creeping animal. It is parallel to Exodus 1,10, where Pharaoh exerted his people to outsmart the Israelites since he could not outnumber them and said: הבה נתחכמה לו, “let us instead try to be smarter than it,” i.e. “on account of its numerical superiority.” It is also similar to Esther 6,4: אשר הכין לו, “which he had prepared on his account.” (On Mordechai’s account, in order to hang him from that gallows). Our author cites more parallels.

כי אם רחץ בשרו במים, “unless he has first washed his body in water.” (ritual bath) In case we understood this as piecemeal washing of the limbs of one’s body, [the Torah adds the word: במים in water (all at the same time). Ed.] This is why the words (in the next verse): “when the sun sets he will be ritually clean,” are of importance here. Just as sunset is not a gradual process but it occurs at the same time, so the whole body has to be washed at the same time. (Sifra)

ובא השמש וטהר ואחר יאכל, “when the sun has set and he has become ritually pure, he may eat, etc.” It is the setting of the sun which causes the purified person to be allows to eat t’rumah, second degree holy matters, not the immersion in the ritual bath preceding that, although that had been a prerequisite. On the other hand, the line:

ואחר יאכל מן הקדשים, “and afterwards he may eat from the holy matters,” i.e. holy matters of the first degree. If as apparent in some manuscripts the order were to be reversed it would not make sense if he could already eat holy things of the first degree, why would he have to await sunset to be allowed to eat t’rumah, which is inferior in its degree of holiness?On the other hand, one may argue that seeing that a non priest is not allowed to eat t’rumah even when ritually pure, this requires additional steps when purification is required for the priest. Still another consideration is the fact that when something holy has been allowed to become piggul, unfit to eat because it has not been eaten during the time prescribed for it, a restriction unknown in respect of t’rumah, this could be a reason why the Torah had to mention both separately. (Sifra)

נבלה וטרפה, “that which dies of itself, or has been torn;” the Torah refers to the carcass of a pure bird, (one that could be eaten if it had been ritually slaughtered) and of flesh from sacrificial meat of mammals which could have been eaten, had it not been removed, but which because it had been removed from the sacred domain within which it could have been eaten had now become treif; or similarly since such a bird had at one point been fit to eat, it is compared to something that had died of its own accord. The priests are not to eat of it as it would confer ritual impurity on them. (Compare Ezekiel 44,31)

תושב כהן ושכיר, “a tenant of a priest or a hired servant;” you could have thought that if a tenant or physically owned slave of a priest is forbidden to eat of these holy things, it is only logical that a hired hand whose has been hired for a limited period only cannot eat from it either, so why did the Torah have to spell this out for us?; The reason is that if the word תושב alone had been written, I would have thought that it refers to someone hired only for a limited period; (Sifra)

.ובת כהן....ובת כהן, why does each verse have to be written separately and have to be introduced by the words: ובת כהן, “and the daughter if a priest?” We must understand these verses as follows: “if this daughter of a priest gets married to someone who is not a priest, i.e. someone who had actually not qualified for marrying a priest’s daughter, as described in the Talmud, tractate Yevamot folio 68, where the subject is the widow of a High Priest; seeing that this woman had married someone forbidden to her, she has forfeited the right to eat t’rumah something that had been her right from birth until such time. [If the Torah had not written that after becoming divorced or widowed such a woman if she returned to her father’s house could resume eating trumah, if she was still childless, I would not have known that while married to a non priest she had been forbidden to do so. Ed.]

כי תהיה אלמנה או גרושה, “the daughter of a priest who after having married a non priest had become widowed or divorced; the Torah speaks of a woman divorced or widowed from an Israelite or a Levite;

אלמנה וגרושה, why does the Torah not only write: גרושה without adding: אלמנה widow;? I would then have reasoned that if even a divorcee would be permitted to revert to the status of being single in her father’s house, a widowed woman surely would be able to do no less; this is why it says: אלמנה וזרע אין לה, “a widow who has no child.” By the same token, if the Torah had only written: אלמנה, “widow,” and had not mentioned a divorced woman, I would have reasoned that a widow who did not have a child could return to her father’s house and her former status as belonging to a priest would be reinstated, but a divorced woman would be reinstated even if she did have children from her ex husband who is not a priest. This is why the Torah had to write: גרושה וזרע אין לה “divorced but childless.” In the case of the widow the addition of “without child,” was a restriction for the widow, whereas the same words were an easing of the rules for the divorcee.

ושבה אל בית אביה, “when she returns to live in the house of her father.” This excludes the case where because she had no children she is awaiting a levirate marriage to the brother or one of them, of her late husband. This is not called: “returning to the house of her father.”

כנעוריה, as when she was less than 12 years and 6 months old, i.e. when she was not yet pregnant. (Sifra)

ויסף חמישיתו, “and he shall add one fifth to the value of the forbidden holy food that he has eaten.” What is meant is that after having added the penalty, the total will represent 20% more than the original, i.e. the sinner had actually added 25% to the original value.

.והשיאו אותם עון אשמם, “and so cause them to bear the guilt brought on by their iniquity.” This is a reference to the people who desecrated holy things by feeding them to non priests. They will have to bear the burden of their sin, not the people who ate them, who were unaware of their status as being holy.

את קדשיהם, ”their holy things.” This teaches that the farmers can give their t’rumah to any priest of their choosing.

מקדשם, “who sanctify them.” This refers to holy matters that had been sanctified by Israelites

איש איש וגו, from the repetition here of the word איש איש, meaning: “anyone,” we learn according to Rashi, that the donations to the Jewish Temple by gentiles are acceptable. If you were to ask why Rashi needed this verse to learn this from indirectly, when we could have inferred this from a very specific verse in verse 25 of our chapter, where the Torah writes: ומיד כל בן נכר לא תקריבו את אלו, “and when donated from any gentile you must not offer on the altar any of these,” it is clear that the only kind of offerings from gentiles we must not present on the altar of our temple are blemished beasts, but beasts that are not blemished but are perfect specimens of their respective categories, may certainly be offered on behalf of the gentiles, the answer is that from that verse we could have derived that if a Jewish priest presented a perfect specimen donated by a gentile he would transgress only against an ordinary negative commandment, but if he presented a blemished animal he would transgress also a positive commandment at the same time. At the same time, if the Torah had only written our verse here, I would have thought that gentiles may even present animals that are blemished as sacrifices on the altar of the Jewish Temple. Not only that, I would have thought that if gentiles wanted to offer sin offerings on the altar of the Jewish Temple this would also be acceptable; this is why the Torah had to approve only nedarim and nedavot, free will offerings of the category of gifts to G-d, by writing what it did.

לרצונכם תמים זכר, “without blemish, male, that you will be well received,” earlier in the portion of Vayikra, 1,3, the Torah spoke of mandatory offerings, when mentioning that the offering needs to be such that G-d will look at the donor with fondness. No mention was made there of any blemishes in the animal offered. The author wonders why the Torah here did not mention other categories of sacrifices.

ואיש כי יקריב, “and when an individual will bring a peace offering, etc.;” only individuals can offer this type of peace offering.

לפלא נדר, “in fulfillment of a vow;” there are two diametrically opposite ways of explaining the word לפלא. One is the one we just used, the other we find in a verse in Deuteronomy 17,8: כי יפלא ממך דבר, where it means “if something is concealed from you;” another example where the same expression is used in a similarly contradictory manner is the word דשן, and לדשנו, in Exodus 27,3 which can mean to remove ashes and dross, and which can mean: to saturate, to have a surfeit of, (in the positive sense, such as when applied to a harvest.) Also, in Zachariah 3,4 מחלצות, where it means fancy priestly robes, whereas in Psalms 7,5, ואחלצה צוררי, it means: “I stripped my oppressors, (removed their protective clothing)” The author quotes another example or two of the same phenomenon.

או שבור, “or broken;” just as we have the expression שבר יד, and ,שבר רגל, describing a broken hand or a broken foot as examples of blemishes seen by all, so here too it describes a very visible blemish due to a fracture of a bone, that is not visible to all.

חרוץ, “maimed,” as in Kings I 20,40: משפטך אתה חרצת, “you yourself have released (decreed) it.”

יבלת, scabbed;

[the next four verses detail certain blemishes which disqualify animals as sacrifices to be offered on the altar, regardless of whether they have been donated by Israelites or gentiles; in the case of the latter, they must not even be accepted by the Temple treasury as gifts while still alive so that they could be sold by him and the proceeds be used for repairs of the Temple. The Torah also forbids us to inflict these kinds of blemishes on human beings deliberately; one of the most serious such disfigurations would be castrating either animals or human beings. I have just summarized this. Ed.]

The author raises the question of whether the prophet Samuel castrated Agag, King of the Amalekites before killing him, and concludes that under the circumstances prevailing that was justified. (Samuel I 7,9, Midrash Shmuel on the subject. Ed.) Apparently, the prohibition was limited to when it was done inside the boundaries of the Land of Israel, as stated in verse 24.

.שור או כשב או עז, “a bullock or sheep or goat;” these animals are named here to remind us that animals that have the distinctive features making them pure, as stated in Leviticus chapter eleven, are nonetheless not fit as sacrifices if they are the product of crossbreeding, or even if they were born by caesarean birth as opposed to being born from the womb. This is why the Torah added the words: כי יולד, “when born.” The word עז in our verse but not in verse 28, is meant to exclude any animal that does not look like its mother, i.e. cannot easily be identified as the same species though we witnessed by which animal it had been born. Such animals do not qualify for ritual slaughter. (Sifra)

כי יולד, the restriction of caesarean birth do not apply to human beings, who are treated in all respects as if born normally. [The exception being that a son born by caesarean incision does not qualify as “firstborn,” the father not having to redeem such a son. Ed.] Such a person born by caesarean incision may offer an animal as a sacrifice, just like a person born from the womb.

והיה שבעת ימים, “it has to remain for a period of seven days;” these seven days are applicable to an animal after it had gone through five or nine full months of pregnancy (depending on what species it is) in its mother’s womb; if it had been born prematurely, or we have reason to think so, seven days are not enough before it qualifies as a potential sacrifice. Another explanation, any person or animal who emerges from a place of spiritual impurity requires seven days of separation before it can enter the Divine compound, like a leper or one who had been in contact with a corpse. תחת אמו, “with its mother;” the legislation does not apply to an orphaned calf. This commandment had already been written in Parshat Mishpatim, 22,29, in connection with the firstborn.

ומיום השמיני, “and commencing on the eighth day of its life;” in the same legislation in Mishpatim, the version is slightly different, i.e. “on the eighth day,” instead of “from the eighth day onward.” The reason is that there the Torah speaks of the first day of its life that that animal is subject to be sanctified as being a sacrificial animal.

ירצה לקרבן, “it becomes welcome as a sacrificial offering;” after the Torah dealt with offerings that are not welcome due to certain circumstances, it now deals with those that are welcome, for instance from the eighth day onwards of the life of the animal in question.

, ושור, “and a bullock,” as opposed to a free roaming mammal;

או שה, “or a lamb,” as opposed to a bird.

אותו ואת בנו, the older generation, i.e. the “mother” or “father;” the one who models itself after the mother, i.e. a female calf. This would exclude a male lamb. According to Rashi, slaughtering a male animal and its male offspring on the same day is not prohibited. Let us agree that there is no penalty of lashes for slaughtering both “father” and “son” on the same day, nonetheless there is a prohibition to do so. This has been spelled out in the Talmud tractate Chulin, folio 79. [Rabbi Chavell, in his annotations, shows that later authorities are all agreed on this. Ed.]

ועשיתם אותם, אני ה, “you will carry them out, I am The Lord.” G-d uses this expression when He wants to impress the reader with the fact that He examines our minds and hearts. Here it is treated as separate.