Rabbi Yochanan on Menachot 7
Note: This post relates to connections between Menachot and Zevachim. That was also a topic of my Jewish Link article this past Shabbat, which you can read here. Also, you can what the NotebookLM generated summary video of that article, and let me know if it is any good.
A few thoughts about Menachot daf 7. First, in this post, let us discuss Rabbi Yochanan:
אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן, זֹאת אוֹמֶרֶת: כְּלֵי שָׁרֵת אֵין מְקַדְּשִׁין אֶלָּא מִדַּעַת.
Concerning this challenge, Rabbi Yoḥanan said: That is to say that service vessels sanctify items placed in them only when they are placed there with specific intent that they be sanctified by that vessel. Since the priest does not return the handful to the vessel containing the meal offering with such intent, the handful is not disqualified, because the rite was not completed.
הָא מִדַּעַת מְקַדְּשִׁין? וְהָא בְּעָא מִינֵּיהּ רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ מֵרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: כְּלֵי שָׁרֵת מַהוּ שֶׁיְּקַדְּשׁוּ פְּסוּלִין לְכַתְּחִילָּה לִיקְרַב? וַאֲמַר לֵיהּ: אֵין מְקַדְּשִׁין! אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אֵין מְקַדְּשִׁין לִיקְרַב, אֲבָל מִקַּדְּשִׁין לִיפָּסֵל.
The Gemara asks: It may be inferred from this statement that if items are placed into service vessels with intent, the service vessels sanctify them. But didn’t Reish Lakish raise a dilemma before Rabbi Yoḥanan: What is the halakha with regard to service vessels, i.e., do they sanctify disqualified items to the extent that they may be sacrificed upon the altar ab initio? And Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him that they do not sanctify the items. The Gemara responds: This is what Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: They do not sanctify the disqualified items that are placed inside them to the extent that they may be sacrificed, but they do sanctify them to the extent that they are disqualified.
Now, “this challenge” is nominally the one raised by Rav Nachman (bar Yaakov), about why they did not just say that the kli sharet was resting on the ground. However, we should realize that it is extremely unlikely that Rabbi Yochanan, in early second generation in the Land of Israel, heard and reacted to Rav Nachman, in early third generation in Bavel. Instead, Rabbi Yochanan is surmising the same, based on the same analysis.
The first statement of Rabbi Yochanan is local to the sugya, by which I mean that it is primary. The second statement is actually borrowed and reworded from Zevachim 87a. The context there was that the mizbeach consecrates even invalid korban matter that is put upon it, according to the Mishnah. Does the same apply to a kli sharet in terms of matter put into it (such as dam, or I suppose a minchah). That is what Reish Lakish asks there. And Rabbi Yochanan answers at length, whereas our Talmudic Narrator is just citing that foreign sugya in order to ask the question, and then simplifies it. Thus, the text there in Zevachim reads:
בְּעָא מִינֵּיהּ רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ מֵרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: כְּלֵי שָׁרֵת מַהוּ שֶׁיְּקַדְּשׁוּ אֶת הַפְּסוּלִין? אֲמַר לֵיהּ, תְּנֵיתוּהָ: כְּשֵׁם שֶׁהַמִּזְבֵּחַ וְהַכֶּבֶשׁ מְקַדְּשִׁין אֶת הָרָאוּי לָהֶן, כָּךְ כֵּלִים מְקַדְּשִׁין!
Reish Lakish raises a dilemma before Rabbi Yoḥanan: What is the halakha with regard to whether service vessels sanctify disqualified items? Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: You learned in the mishna that just as the altar and the ramp sanctify items that are suited to them even if those items are disqualified, so too, the service vessels sanctify items placed in them.
אֲמַר לֵיהּ: לְכַתְּחִילָּה לִיקְרַב קָמִיבְּעֵי לִי. הָא נָמֵי תְּנֵינָא:
Reish Lakish said to him: The mishna indicates that service vessels sanctify that which is placed in them in the sense that they may no longer be redeemed even if they become disqualified. I raise the dilemma with regard to whether service vessels sanctify disqualified items such that they may be sacrificed ab initio. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: This also we learn in a mishna (84a):
שֶׁקִּיבְּלוּ פְּסוּלִין וְזָרְקוּ אֶת דָּמוֹ; מַאי, לָאו שֶׁקִּיבְּלוּ פְּסוּלִין וְזָרְקוּ פְּסוּלִין?
An offering that people unfit for performing the Temple service collected and then sprinkled its blood shall not descend from the altar if it ascended. What, is it not that the mishna means that people unfit for performing the Temple service collected the blood and people unfit for performing the Temple service sprinkled it as well, which disqualifies it from ascending the altar? But if the collection alone was performed by people unfit for performing the Temple service, although the offering becomes disqualified, those fit to perform the Temple service may sprinkle the blood and sacrifice the offering ab initio. The reason, apparently, is that service vessels sanctify disqualified blood such that it may be sprinkled ab initio.
לֹא, שֶׁקִּיבְּלוּ פְּסוּלִין. אִי נָמֵי שֶׁזָּרְקוּ פְּסוּלִין.
Reish Lakish rejects this proof: No, the mishna may be referring to two independent cases, i.e., that people unfit for performing the Temple service collected the blood, or that people unfit for performing the Temple service sprinkled the blood after it was collected by people who were fit for performing the Temple service. Accordingly, the mishna teaches only that if such offerings ascended the altar they shall not descend after the fact, but service vessels do not sanctify disqualified items such that they are offered ab initio.
In Tosafot in Menachot, Rabbeinu Peter points out that, effectively, what Rabbi Yochanan says in Zevachim does not accord with how it is summarized here in Menachot (by the Talmudic Narrator). I would concur. After all, it says there לְכַתְּחִילָּה לִיקְרַב קָמִיבְּעֵי לִי, and Rabbi Yochanan there says that it would be fine. Yet in Menachot, Rabbi Yochanan does not hold that it is sanctified and thus good lechatchila to be brought, only sufficiently to be pasul.
I suspect the answer lies in how, after Reish Lakish objects אֲמַר לֵיהּ: לְכַתְּחִילָּה לִיקְרַב קָמִיבְּעֵי לִי, and does so as a named Amora, with amar leih, so we know he said it, the response is just הָא נָמֵי תְּנֵינָא without an amar leih. In which case it aligns with a Rabbi Yochanan position, but not that Rabbi Yochanan said it. That is, it is a Stamma, a Talmudic Narrator in Zevachim, who says this, not Rabbi Yochanan himself.
To elaborate on the point, I think that at an earlier stage in development, the Stamma did not yet say this in Zevachim. The Talmudic Narrator then took the original sugya witrh Reish Lakish’s objection and reframing, and understood it to mean that Rabbi Yochanan concurred with that framing. And so, the Talmudic Narrator in Menachot could make the distinction it did, whether it was sanctified for the sake of pesul or for lechatchila sacrificing. Meanwhile, a different person, the Talmudic Narrator of Zevachim, took that sugya in a different direction. It is a dispute amongst Stammaim — that is, Savoraim or Geonim.