daf bit: Menachot 106

[cellio]

When we think about offerings that people brought to the temple we think primarily of animals and grain. However, other items could be offered too (as freewill offerings, not to atone for sin). These other offerings include wood, frankincense, and precious metals. A mishna on today's daf explains that there are minimum amounts for all of these -- two logs of wood (that's a measure, not a piece of timber), a handful of frankincense, and a dinar of gold or silver. And if he specified how much gold or silver he would bring but then forgot, he must bring enough to pass the point where he would say "surely I did not intend to bring this much!". (106b)

Aside: much of this tractate and the previous one are concerned with temple operations, including how the kohanim (priests) are to conduct rituals. Being a kohein in the temple wasn't a full-time job -- there were too many of them for that. This led me to ask on Judaism.StackExchange, a couple weeks ago, what the kohanim did the rest of the time. I thought some of you might be interested in the discussion there.

Comments

[cellio]

The kohanim had a rotation, as I understand it; it wasn't a matter of "who feels the calling this week".

(Anybody can in principle go study for a period of time, though.)