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Money Down the Drain

Nazir 24

The mishnah here gets into complicated cases of what happens to money set aside for Nazir sacrifices if the sacrifices can no longer be brought. The money for a sin offering חטאת cannot be used for anything else and therefore the coins have to be disposed of. In the language of the mishnah: יוליכם לים המלח, bring them to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the mishnaic equivalent of flushing something down the toilet, ensuring that it can never be used or even found again.

About ten years ago a huge cache of Hasmonean coins was found in the Dead Sea. Among the suggestions of where they came from is one connected to this idea, of coins that needed to be disposed of because they could not (or would not!) be brought to the Temple. The articles are below.

> ​http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/pennies-from-heaven-or-elsewhere-1.133313
>
> http://sfile.f-static.com/image/users/240224/ftp/my_files/ITAMR/In%20for%20a%20Penny%20-%20Itamar%20Atzmon%20(with%20a%20Advertisement).pdf?id=12283525

Thanks to my multi-talented friend Deborah Geller for finding this and sending it to me!

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