Rambam In-Depth: Eat the Korban But Can't Change It

Rabbi Heschel Greenberg has developed a new class series focused on studying the Rambam's Mishneh Torah in response to the Rebbe's directive to learn at least one halacha in depth.

The Rebbe promoted a comprehensive effort to unite Jews through study of the Mishneh Torah, offering multiple approaches: learning three chapters daily to complete the work in under a year, learning one chapter to finish in approximately three years, or alternatively studying the Sefer Hamitzvos alongside it. Beyond these options, the Rebbe also requested that learners study one halacha in depth.

The recent start of the 46th cycle of Mishneh Torah prompted Rabbi Greenberg to record brief classes on selected passages from the work.

Rabbi Greenberg serves as a shliach of the Rebbe in Buffalo, New York, and directs the Jewish Discovery Center. Over more than 50 years, he has taught thousands of classes covering various aspects of Jewish knowledge and has authored dozens of works on diverse subjects, including several volumes of commentary on the Mishneh Torah. His classes are available on his website.

One selected passage addresses the laws of temurah, the act of declaring that an animal's sanctity as a korban should transfer to a different animal. The Rambam rules that this transfer is forbidden in two concurrent ways: it constitutes a violation incurring lashes, and the transfer itself never succeeds. Both animals end up holy - the original because its sanctity never departs, and the new one because temurah adds kedusha even while failing to remove it from the first animal.