Home -- Content: Series 7 (Laws) -- Translation: English -- Book: 1 (Tora) -- Part: 2 (Negative) -- Prohibition: 136 -- Text
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The Sharia of Moses in the TORA
Part 2 - The 365 Prohibitions of the Tora
136 - AN UNCLEAN PRIEST EATING TERUMAH
The punishment for contravention of this prohibition is death by the hand of Heaven. In the ninth chapter of Sanhedrin, an unclean priest who eats of a clean heave offering is included in the list of sinners who are liable to death by the hand of Heaven, and this is justified by His words, They shall therefore keep My ordinance, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby (Leviticus 22:9).*
An unclean priest who eats unclean terumah is punishable by whipping,* but a clean priest who eats unclean terumah incurs no punishment, though he has committed a transgression.**
** Mishneh Torah, Zeraim, Hilchoth Terumoth VII, 3
Since some priests were not learned in the Torah, and therefore did not eat their food in the prescribed condition of cleanness, the heave offering had to be given only to a priest learned in the Torah.*