288. Look Deeper: The prohibition against sprinkling a blemished animal’s blood on the altar

Leviticus 22:22 says that an animal that is “blind, broken, maimed… these you shall not offer to God, nor make an offering by fire of them on the altar to God.” Since we already know that a blemished animal may not be used as a sacrifice, the Talmud (Temurah 6b) asks what this seemingly-superfluous verse comes to teach us. It infers that several distinct acts are prohibited. The words “on the altar” refer specifically to sprinkling the blood of a defective animal on the altar. (The Talmud continues this discussion and suggests alternative sources for this mitzvah. A full analysis of this discussion is beyond our scope. Suffice it to say that all parties agree on the mitzvah itself even if they cite different sources for it in the Torah.)

Again, the reason for this mitzvah is to impress upon us the significance of the Temple service. It’s so important that even individual parts of the sacrificial process violate discrete prohibitions if performed with an unqualified animal.

This mitzvah only applies in Temple times. It is discussed in the Talmud in tractate Temurah on pages 6b-7a. It is codified in the Mishneh Torah in the first chapter of Hilchos Issurei Mizbe’ach and is #93 of the 365 negative mitzvos in the Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvos.