Today’s daf segues into a technical discussion of bikkurim, the first fruits of the season that were brought to the Temple as an offering. Just as yesterday we considered which parts of the requirement of sending a mother bird away are essential, today the question at hand is whether failing to perform a part of the bikkurim ceremony disqualifies the offering.
The ritual of offering the bikkurim is described in the Torah, Deuteronomy 26:1–10. As you read it, pay attention to the various steps of the ritual:
When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish the divine name. You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before the Lord your God that I have entered the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to assign us.” The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. You shall then recite as follows before the Lord your God: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. The Lord freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents, bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, Lord, have given me.” You shall leave it before the Lord your God and bow low before the Lord your God.
Bikkurim is a unique tradition. While sacrifices emphasize physical actions, this one centers verbal recitation of a specific declaration. It is a moment of storytelling.
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The Talmud raises an apparent contradiction in traditions of how Rabbi Elazar in the name of Rabbi Hoshaya understood the significance of the bikkurim declaration:
Rabbi Elazar says that Rabbi Hoshaya says: With regard to first fruits, failing to place them alongside the altar invalidates them, but failing to recite the accompanying Torah verses does not invalidate them.
And did Rabbi Elazar say that? But doesn’t Rabbi Elazar say that Rabbi Hoshaya says: If one set aside first fruits before the festival and the festival elapsed over them (they remained in his possession), they shall be left to decay (as they cannot be rendered fit for consumption). What, is it not that they cannot be rendered fit due to the fact that he can no longer recite the Torah verses over them? And if it enters your mind to say that the lack of recitation does not invalidate them, why must they be left to decay?
One tradition holds that Rabbi Elazar taught in the name of Rabbi Hoshaya that while not placing the first fruits in front of the altar invalidates the offering, not reciting the declaration has no effect on the offering’s validity. The words are, on this view, non-essential. A second tradition, however, implies that Rabbi Elazar taught in the name of Rabbi Hoshaya that without reciting the declaration within the appropriate time interval of the festival, the bikkurim cannot be brought. The Gemara resolves the apparent contradiction:
Rabbi Elazar holds in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Zeira, as Rabbi Zeira says: For any measure of flour that is suitable for mixing with oil in a meal offering, the lack of mixing does not invalidate the meal offering. And for any measure of flour that is not suitable for mixing with oil in a meal offering, the lack of mixing invalidates the meal offering.
Even though there is a requirement to mix the oil and the flour in a meal offering, says Rabbi Zeira, the meal offering is fit for sacrifice even when the oil and the flour are not mixed — provided that the flour was suitable for mixing to begin with. This logic is extended to bikkurim: Although failure to recite the Torah verses does not invalidate the first fruits for consumption by the priest, that applies only when reciting the formula is possible. After the season has passed, and offering bikkurim is no longer possible, failure to recite the Torah verses invalidates the first fruits.
What is particularly interesting to me to consider is this: Jewish tradition is full of detailed, highly-prescribed rituals, but entire modern Jewish movements have been based on questions regarding the extent to which ritual itself matters. Perhaps surprisingly, the Talmud asks a similar question about bikkurim: Does it matter what, if anything, is said in completing this ritual? And, further down the daf, does it matter what actions are or are not performed? These questions extend far beyond the bikkurim, and we continue to grapple with them today.
Read all of Makkot 18 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 15, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
