PANCAKES AND DOUGHNUTS

“If your offering is a meal offering on a machavat, it shall be made of high-quality flour, mixed with oil, and it shall be unleavened bread. Break it into pieces, and pour oil on it, it is a meal offering. If your offering is a meal offering in a marcheset, it shall be prepared of high-quality flour with oil. You shall bring the meal offering that is prepared of these to the Lord. He shall bring it to the cohen, and he shall bring it to the altar.” (Vayikrah 2:5-7)

Korbanot, sacrifices or offerings, were of three general categories: animals, birds and meal (grain). There were also wine libations and on the festival of Sukkot, a water-libation. Salt was also added to all offerings before they were placed on the altar. A meal offering is referred to as a mincha (plural, menachot) and it had several forms. If someone took a vow to bring a mincha offering, he (or she) could specify one of several types: minchat solet, a plain, uncooked flour offering; minchat ma’afeh tanur, a meal-offering baked in an oven, which could either be unleavened loaves or unleavened wafers; minchat machavat, a meal-offering fried in a shallow pan and minchat marcheshet, a meal-offering fried in a deep pan. All of these were mixed with olive oil and a portion of frankincense (levona) was added to them. An officiating cohen would take the mincha in a utensil to the south-western corner of the altar and gently touch it to the altar (hagasha). The cohen would then remove a handful (kemitza) from the mincha and burn that small portion on the altar.  The remainder of the mincha was consumed by the cohanim on duty. Neither the mincha nor its remainder could be chametz, leaven. If a cohen brought a mincha, the entire offering was burned on the altar.  

Most menachot were made with wheat flour but there were two that were made from barley flour: the Omer offering on the second day of Pesach and the minchat k’na’ot brought by a suspected adulteress. All menachot were unleavened except for two: the two large loaves that were brought on Shavuot and ten of the forty loaves that accompanied the thanksgiving offering (the other thirty were matzah). The former were not placed upon the altar in accordance with the verse (Vayikra 2:11), “All meal offerings that you shall bring to the Lord shall not be prepared as leavened bread, for all leaven and all honey, you shall not burn as a fire offering to the Lord.” When an individual brought a mincha it was usually as a nedava (voluntary gift) but there were two mincha sin-offerings: the suspected adulteress’s offering (as mentioned above) and a minchat choteh, the meal-offering of a person who committed one of several sins and could not afford an animal or bird offering. These sin-offerings did not have oil or frankincense added to them.  Some menachot were brought by individuals and some on behalf of the entire nation. An example of the former, besides those mentioned above, was the minchat chavitin, the daily twelve-loaf offering brought by the Cohen Gadol. An example of the latter was the lechem hapanim, the twelve large loaves of the showbread that were placed on the Golden Table in the sanctuary every Shabbat. The laws of the menachot are many, complicated and varied, and occupy an entire tractate in the Talmud, aptly called Menachot. This is the tractate that is currently being studied in the Daf Yomi programme.

Regarding two of the voluntary menachot, the Torah is very particular that they be prepared in specific utensils, the one being a machavat and the second, a marcheshet. What are these utensils? The Mishna (Menachot 63a) records a debate about this: “One who takes a vow to bring a meal offering and says: It is incumbent upon me to bring a meal offering prepared in a machavat, may not bring one prepared in a marcheshet. Similarly, if he says: It is incumbent upon me to bring a meal offering prepared in a marcheshet, he may not bring one prepared in a machavat. What is the difference between a machavat and a marcheshet? A marcheshet has a cover, whereas a machavat does not have a cover; this is the statement of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili. Rabbi Chanina ben Gamliel says: A marcheshet is deep, and due to the large amount of oil, its product is soft because it moves about [rochashin] in the oil. A machavat is flat, as the sides of the pan are level with the pan, and due to the small amount of oil, its product is hard.”

The Talmud (ibid) investigates these two opinions and provides sources for each. After a few attempts to find Biblical support for Rabbi Yosei’s view (that one had a cover and the other did not), the Talmud concludes that he received a tradition that this was the case. However, in regards to Rabbi Chanina’s view, he has good Biblical support. First, as he himself states in the Mishna, is the root of the word marcheshet. It is derived from rachash, which means to creep or move around. This aptly describes dough frying in a deep pan. The second proof is based on the prepositions that the Torah uses later when describing these utensils (Vayikra 7:9), “Every meal offering that is baked in the oven, and any prepared in a marcheshet or on a machavat , it shall be for the cohen who presents it.” The use of the preposition “in” in reference to a marcheshet implies that it has a cavity whereas the use of the preposition “on” in reference to a machavat implies that it is flat. A mincha prepared in a machavat would be quite hard as most of the oil would evaporate. A mincha prepared in a marcheshet would be soft and chewy due to the large quantity of oil. The former would be like the traditional Yemenite bread malawach, which resembles a thick pancake but consists of thin layers of puff pastry brushed with oil or fat and cooked flat in a frying pan. Traditional Indian roti bread also comes to mind. The later would be closer to a doughnut, but perhaps not as thick.

As a general rule, poor people would offer menachot as they were far cheaper than a bird or animal offering (see Rashi to Vayikra 2:1). Although a mincha was normally offered as a gift rather than as a way to seek atonement for sin, the Talmud (ibid) suggest that it may have had some connection to certain transgressions. In its analysis of the words marcheshet and machavat, the Talmud suggests that marcheshet is related to the Aramaic word for whispering and machavat is related to the Hebrew word for secrecy or concealment. Hence the mincha offering might atone for sins of the lips (whispering) and sins of the heart, which are concealed (such as evil thoughts). Unlike sin-offerings which bring atonement for actual deeds, the mincha (and olah, burnt-offering) bring atonement for much more subtle misdeeds: negative speech and destructive thoughts. Even though these were not translated into action, they still require atonement as they are the source of all action. No one ever committed a sin without first thinking about it. The enormous detail surrounding the mincha offering is a testament to the fact that the Torah values the offerings of even the poorest person, providing him or her with a dignified way of serving God and achieving forgiveness.

 Lee, Chani Merryl & Naomi join me in wishing you Shabbat Shalom!   

Rabbi Liebenberg.

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