daf bit: Zevachim 36

[cellio]

The mishna, discussing the process for making an animal offering, teaches that if the priest conducting the ritual does so with the intention that ritually-impure or uncircumcised people eat it, or that he will mingle its blood with blood from invalid sources, or that he will break the bones of the Pesach offering, the offering is nonetheless valid: an illegitimate intention on the part of the priest does not disqualify the offering except under certain specific circumstances. (35b-36a)

On the other hand, if the priest makes a mistake in carrying out the ritual, that can sometimes disqualify. I find it interesting that his intentions do not (usually) disqualify, especially since we are taught that prayer (what replaced the sacrificial system) without the correct intention is not valid. Perhaps the prayer case is analogous to the one who brings the offering rather than the one who effects it (the priest), and the mishna is lenient in the case where the person bringing the offering did everything right but the priest erred. It's not the priest who is going to have to replace the animal, after all.

Comments

[cellio]

Prayer collapses two roles into one. With the sacrificial system, the priests were specially-designated to do that part of the job, but of course you also needed the person to actually bring the animal (or grain, etc). So you actually needed two people, except in the specialized case of the priest's own offerings. Anybody can pray and, if he follows the structure and rules laid out by the rabbis, it is as if he had brought a sacrifice. I'm guessing that, technically, the pray-er is playing both roles now -- the one who brings and the one who conducts the ritual -- and since we're talking about matters of intention there's no problem.

I am surely over-thinking this. :-)