Reichman and Mishnah Zebahim 12:2-3

Yesterday, I talked about Jacob Neusner's treatment of Sifra Leviticus. Essentially, Neusner believes that Sifra Leviticus was a third century C.E. attempt to ground certain items of the Mishnah in Scripture. In Neusner's scenario, the Mishnah came before Sifra Leviticus, which interacted with the Mishnah.

But Ronen Reichman has a different point-of-view. In Mishna und Sifra, he argues that the Sifra is older than the Mishnah, and that the Mishnah used the Sifra. In this post, I'll discuss one of his arguments.
Leviticus 7:8 affirms that a priest who offers a burnt offering can keep the skin of the animal for himself. Mishnah Zebahim 12:2-3 talks about this issue. According to this passage of the Mishnah, the priest does not acquire the right to the skin of the animal until the sprinkling of blood---which is when the animal can be sacrificed on the altar. But what if the animal, while it was being slaughtered, was not intended to be a burnt offering, but some other kind of offering, but it is offered up as a burnt offering? In that case, it does not count for the offerer, who must bring another animal to fulfill his obligation. But the priest can still keep the animal's skin. And the skin belongs to the priest whether the offering was brought by a man or a woman.

The Mishnah then goes on to say that the skins of the lesser holy things belong to the owner, whereas the skins of the most holy things belong to the priest. Mishnah Zabahim 5 tells us which sacrifices are among the most holy things, and which are among the lesser holy things. The most holy things include the whole burnt offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, and the entire congregation's peace offering on Pentecost. These offerings were slaughtered on the north side of the altar. The lesser holy things include the thank offering, the ram of the Nazirite, the peace-offering of individuals, the firstling, the tithe of cattle, and the Passover offering. These could be slaughtered anywhere in the Temple court.

Back to Mishnah Zebahim 12:2-3! We know that the priests have a right to the skin of the whole burnt offering. But do they have a right to the skin of the other most holy offerings as well? Paragraph 3 uses a lesser-to-greater argument to answer this question in the affirmative. In the whole burnt offering, the priests have a right to the skin of the animal, but not to the meat. In other most holy things, however, they eat some of the meat. If the priests have the right to the skin of offerings that are so important that they can't even eat the meat, then one can conclude that they have the right to the skin of lesser (yet still in the category of most holy) sacrifices, whose meat they can eat.

The Mishnah then says (quoting from Danby's translation) that "The Altar affords no proof since the hide never pertains to it." What the heck does that mean? It is elliptical. The Sifra provides more detail on the context of this statement: what the objection is, and how the altar affords no proof because the skin does not pertain to it. Reichman's conclusion, therefore, is that the Mishnah used the Sifra and abbreviated that part of it because the Mishnah's compiler could always check his copy of the Sifra whenever he needed to do so.

Reichman can envision the Mishnah abbreviating the Sifra. But he does not think that the Sifra was fleshing out the Mishnah, for why would the Mishnah be deliberately elliptical? Reichman's treatment of the relationship between the Mishnah and the Sifra may overlap with a similar debate on which came first: the Mishnah or the Tosefta? Some say that the Tosefta came first because the Mishnah is incomprehensible without the Tosefta. The implication is that an incomprehensible Mishnah would not be floating around on its own, without a Tosefta that could help one to make sense of it. Others argue, however, that the Mishnah came first because the Tosefta is incomprehensible without the Mishnah! Reichman's argument seems to be that the Mishnah does not make sense without the context that the Sifra provides, and so the Sifra came before the Mishnah.

I spent some time detailing the argument in Mishnah Zebahim 12:2-3, and so I'd be remiss if I did not tell you what the Sifra says about the altar! The issue is this: The Mishnah and the Sifra are envisioning someone making an objection to the argument that the priest has a right to the skin of all of the most holy sacrifices. The objection is based on making an analogy between the priest and the altar. The altar acquires the flesh of the burnt offering but not the skin, and so the conclusion is made that the priest, too, can eat the meat of most holy offerings (except for the whole burnt offering, for all of that meat is consumed on the altar), but that does not mean that he's entitled to their skin (again, except for the whole burnt offering, for Leviticus 7:8 entitles the priest to the skin, in that case). The objection here is trying to poke holes into the lesser-to-greater argument that we saw above. The lesser-to-greater argument said that the priest was entitled to the skin of the whole burnt offering, which he couldn't eat, and so he is also entitled to the skin of other most holy offerings, which he can eat. It is almost as if, in this lesser-to-greater argument, the fact that the priest can eat these offerings is a crucial factor in his entitlement to the skin. But the objector is saying "Not so fast!" The altar eats the meat of the whole burnt offering, yet it is not entitled to the skin of the animal (which belongs to the priest). Consequently, contra the lesser-to-greater argument, eating something does not entitle one to its skin.

But, according to the Mishnah and the Sifra, this argument mixes apples with oranges. The altar does not have the right to the skin of any animal, whereas the priest does. One cannot appeal to the altar as an analogy to determine rules about when the priest does and does not have a right to the skin of an animal, for such a question is utterly irrelevant to the altar: the altar is never entitled to the skin of the animal! But, because the priest has right to the skin of some most holy sacrifices, he has the right to the skin of all most holy sacrifices.

Whereas the Mishnah simply mentions the altar and states that the skin never pertains to it, the Sifra actually gives details about the objection: that the objector is saying that the altar eats the flesh but is not entitled to the skin. And the Sifra then responds that the altar never has the right to the skin, anyway, but there are cases in which the priest does.