Seven Days of Matzah and the Festival Offering

Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 13:5

Curated by Arthur·Told by Maggid·

"Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread" (Exodus 13:6). How do you know that if the six days of the festival pass and one did not bring the festival-offering, he is still obligated in the festival-offering for all seven? Scripture says, "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival to the LORD."

Themes

PassoverCommandmentsSacrifice

Continue Reading

Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben YochaiWhy the Passover Lamb Must Be Unblemished and a Year OldScripture does not waste a word, and here it piles up qualifications for the Passover offering: it must be a lamb, without blemish, a year old, drawn from the sMekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben YochaiPlacing the Blood on the Doorposts and Lintel of the HouseEvery detail of the blood rite is weighed. First the blood itself: there must be enough to constitute a real "taking," and it must be the lifeblood that flows aMekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben YochaiEating the Roasted Lamb with Matzah and Bitter HerbsHow the lamb is eaten matters as much as that it is eaten. The rabbis fix a minimum: no "eating" is less than an olive's bulk, and it must be flesh, not bone, sMekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben YochaiDo Not Eat the Passover Raw or Boiled but Only RoastedThe Torah does not merely command roasting; it forbids the alternatives, and the sages parse exactly where the lines fall. "Raw" here means undercooked, and oneMekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben YochaiLeaving None Until Morning and Burning the RemnantNothing of the Passover may be carried into the next day. "Leave none of it until morning," the Torah commands, and then adds that whatever does remain must be Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben YochaiThe Hyssop Bunch and the Blood Upon the DoorpostsThe instrument of the blood-rite is humble: a bunch of hyssop, the lowly plant that grows in cracks of walls. Rabbi Yehudah binds this hyssop to other moments i