A few months ago, I had the honor of
being part of a workshop run by Matan and led by Rabbanit Shani Taragin at
Meshek 48 in Rosh Tzurim. The goal of the workshop was to make Menachot (meal
offerings) similar to the ones offered in the Beit HaMikdash (Temple).
What exactly does that entail?
We learn about the Menachot in
Parhsat Vayikra in the first ten verses of Chapter 2:
The Torah lists five types of meal
offerings. They are all made of the same ingredients.
The first type, Minchat Solet- Fine
flour meal offering (Vayikra 2:1-3) is a simple offering which is not cooked or
baked:
When a person brings a meal-offering
to God, his offering shall be of fine flour; he shall pour oil upon it and
place frankincense upon it. He shall bring it to the sons of Aharon, the
Kohanim; from there a Kohen takes a fistful- from its flour and oil- with all
its frankincense. The Kohen shall burn its memorial portion on the altar, a
fire offering of pleasing fragrance to God. Whatever is left of the
meal-offering belongs to Aharon and his sons; It is holy of holies of the
fire-offerings of God.
At the workshop, we divided up into
four groups in order to prepare the four different baked/cooked/fried offerings.
We took fine flour, oil and a little bit of water as needed and mixed them
together in large bowls.
The following are the Menachot that
we prepared:
The second and third types of
menachot are in the category of Maafe Tanur- Baked in the Oven:
The maafe tanur can either be
unleavened loaves (challot matzot) mixed with oil or unleavened wafers (rekikei
matzot) smeared with oil. As we see in Vayikra 2:4:
When you offer a meal offering that
is baked in an oven, it shall be of fine flour: unleavened loaves mixed with
oil, or unleavened wafers smeared with oil.
Rashi quotes the Talmud, Menachot
76a: All the meal offerings which are baked before the fistful is taken, and
their fistful is taken by breaking the loaves of wafer into pieces- all of them
come in groups of ten loaves, and those which it is said wafers come in groups
of ten wafers.
When the Maafe Tanur that we
prepared came out of the oven, our challot matzot came out like pita bread
while the rekikei matzot came out like matzah.
The fourth type is Mincha al
Machvat, Pan-baked offering (Vayikra 2:5-6):
If your offering is a meal offering
on the pan, it shall be of fine flour mixed with oil, it shall be unleavened.
You shall break it into pieces and pour oil upon it- it is a meal offering.
Rashi comments that the pan was a
vessel used in the Temple, in which they would bake the meal offering in oil on
the fire; the vessel was not deep but flat. And the resulting meal-offering
made in it was hard, since it was flat, the fire burnt the oil.
These came out like pancakes.
The fifth kind was Minchat
Marcheshet- Deep-pan meal offering (Vayikra 2:7):
If your offering is a meal offering
in a deep pan, it should be made of fine flour with oil.
Rashi explains that the pan was
deep. Its oil was gathered at the bottom and the fire did not burn it. The meal
offering looked like it was creeping (rochashin). Everything soft because of
the liquid contained in it appears as though it is creeping and moving.
Therefore it is called marcheshet.
These were deep fried. They came out
like oily matzah balls!
Since this was just a workshop and
because the Beit HaMikdash has not yet been rebuilt, we did not have to give
our Menachot to a Kohen. Rather, we separated challah in the same way that
challah is taken when baking any type of bread and when the Menachot were
ready, we were able to eat them.
I personally liked the Mincha al
Machvat, the pan baked offering the best!
I highly recommend this type of
workshop to anyone who wants to understand what the vegetarian sacrifices were
all about. |