Study Zevachim folio 90B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
מאי, לאו דחג? לא, לנדבה. פרים קודמין לאילים – שכן נתרבו בנסכים. וכן אילים לכבשים. כבשים לשעירים – שכן נתרבו באליה.
What, is it not referring to the additional offerings of the festival of Sukkot? If so, the baraita is teaching that bulls, rams, and sheep, which are burnt offerings, precede the sin offerings of male goats. The Talmud answers: No, with regard to all these animals the baraita is referring to gift offerings. The Talmud interprets the baraita in accordance with this explanation: Bulls precede rams, as they require a greater quantity of libations; and likewise rams precede sheep for the same reason. Sheep precede male goats, although their libations are identical, as the portions of the sheep consumed on the altar are greater; the sheep’s tail is burned, whereas the goat’s tail is not.
תא שמע: פר כהן משיח קודם לפר העלם דבר של צבור, פר העלם דבר של צבור קודם לפר עבודה זרה,
The Talmud suggests: Come and hear a baraita which seems to contradict the principle that a sin offering always precedes a burnt offering: The bull of the anointed priest, i.e., the High Priest, which he sacrifices if he issues and then acts upon an erroneous halakhic ruling, precedes the bull for an unwitting communal sin, sacrificed if the Sanhedrin issues an erroneous halakhic ruling and the community then acts upon it. Similarly, the bull for an unwitting communal sin precedes the bull sacrificed as a burnt offering to atone for an unwitting communal sin involving idol worship.
פר עבודה זרה קודם לשעירי עבודה זרה. דאף על גב דפר עבודה זרה עולה, ושעירי עבודה זרה חטאת!
The baraita continues: The bull sacrificed as atonement for communal idol worship precedes the male goats that atone for idol worship, i.e., the goat sacrificed together with the bull. This is the halakha even though the bull that atones for idol worship is a burnt offering, and the male goats sacrificed as atonement for idol worship are sin offerings. This baraita seems to contradict the statement of the previous baraita that a sin offering always precedes a burnt offering.