Talmud Menahoth: (Soncino Babylonian Talmud Book 42)

The Hebrew term Kodashim means Holy Things. This term, in the Biblical context, applies to the sacrifices, the Temple and its appurtenances, as well as its officiating priests; and it is with these holy things, places and persons that the Seder Kodashim is mainly concerned. Its position between Nezikin (Torts) and Tohoroth (Cleannesses) is determined, according to Maimonides, by the sequence in which the laws dealt with in these three orders appear in the Bible. This Seder contains also the Tractate Hullin which, although it treats of non-holy things, is included because the rules it prescribes regarding the slaughter of animals and birds, and their ritual fitness for use, constitute an integral part of the law of Holiness of which, as will be seen, the sacrificial cult was designed as vehicle of the highest religious expression.

The 'Order' comprises eleven tractates. The second is MENAHOTH (Meal-offerings) which prescribes the rules regarding the preparation and presentation of meal and drink offerings; the bringing of the sheaf of barley (Lev. XXIII, 10); the two loaves (Lev. XXIII, 17); and the showbread (Lev. XXIV, 5). 13 Chapters.

The Gemara on the 'Order' Kodashim is a testimony to the strong interest which the teachers of the Palestinian and Babylonian schools coninued to take in the sacrificial cult even after its cessation with the destruction of the Temple. This interest was more than merely historical and academic. It was based on strictly practical considerations. There were in fact two motives that kept alive the study of the Seder Kodashim even after its laws had fallen into disuse. One sprang from the unquenchable hope that the Temple would sooner or later be rebuilt, involving the restoration of the sacrificial cult, so that the knowledge of its laws would once again become essential. The other was the belief that the study of the sacrificial laws could serve as a surrogate for the Temple cult and was no less efficacious than the actual offering of the sacrifice itself. These motives lay behind the unceasing intellectual activity that centered round the Seder Kodashim throughout the intervening centuries to the present day, and which has crystallized itself in a mass of commentaries on the 'Order'; and in our own times the conviction that has seized many minds that we are witnessing the Athhalta di-Geulah ('beginning of the redemption') has led to the assiduous study of Seder Kodashim in many of the higher schools of learning in the Holy Land. [Adapted from the Introduction to Seder Kodashim.]