When the Passover Lamb Must Be Unblemished and a Year Old

"A lamb without blemish, a male, a year old, shall be for you" (Exodus 12:5): that it must be unblemished and a year old at the moment of slaughter. And from where do we learn that it must also be so at the receiving of the blood, the carrying of the blood, and the sprinkling? Scripture teaches "shall be" (yihyeh), that its whole existence in the rite be unblemished and a year old. This was rendered also concerning "a year old." So too it stands to reason, for it is taught: Rabbi Yehoshua says, of all the sacrifices in the Torah, if there remains of them an olive's bulk of flesh or an olive's bulk of fat, one sprinkles the blood. Learn from this -- yet is there anything that at the moment of slaughter is a year old, and at the receiving, carrying, and sprinkling of the blood becomes two years old? Rava said: this teaches that hours disqualify in consecrated offerings [the passing of hours can render an animal too old]. "From the cattle, from the herd or from the flock" (Leviticus 1:2): this excludes the aged, the sick, and the foul-smelling. But that teacher who derives from "from the cattle" the exclusion of an animal that mounts or is mounted -- from where does he derive the aged, the sick, and the foul-smelling? He derives it from what is taught: "from the sheep or from the goats you shall take" -- these are restrictive terms, excluding the aged, the sick, and the foul-smelling. And that teacher of the school of Rabbi Yishmael holds that "from the sheep or from the goats you shall take" is simply the manner of Scripture to speak in this way.