daf bit: Menachot 14
(Today's daf is Menachot 15.)
This tractate begins by discussing grain offerings. The mishna teaches: if one of the two loaves brought together (on Shavuot), or one of the two rows of the show-bread, becomes ritually impure and thus forbidden to eat, then Rabbi Yehudah says you must burn both of them, for the offerings of the congregation may not be divided. The sages disagree, saying that the impure one is treated as impure but the other can be eaten. (14b)
It is not clear to me whether replacements must be brought for loaves that become ritually impure, or if you are just deprived of the food.
It would seem a natural tendency to say "better safe than sorry" and discard both, but the rabbis do not do that here. I don't know about this case, but in the similar case of accidentally spilling a drop of milk into a large pot of meat, where the rabbis nullify the milk instead of throwing out the whole pot, one factor they weigh is the loss to the affected person. The rabbis seem to seek a balance between risk of halachic error and cost of the (possible) error.
This tractate begins by discussing grain offerings. The mishna teaches: if one of the two loaves brought together (on Shavuot), or one of the two rows of the show-bread, becomes ritually impure and thus forbidden to eat, then Rabbi Yehudah says you must burn both of them, for the offerings of the congregation may not be divided. The sages disagree, saying that the impure one is treated as impure but the other can be eaten. (14b)
It is not clear to me whether replacements must be brought for loaves that become ritually impure, or if you are just deprived of the food.
It would seem a natural tendency to say "better safe than sorry" and discard both, but the rabbis do not do that here. I don't know about this case, but in the similar case of accidentally spilling a drop of milk into a large pot of meat, where the rabbis nullify the milk instead of throwing out the whole pot, one factor they weigh is the loss to the affected person. The rabbis seem to seek a balance between risk of halachic error and cost of the (possible) error.