“ ‘The meat that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten. It shall be burned with fire. As for the meat, everyone who is clean may eat it;
Not to eat sacrificial flesh that has become ritually impure (tamei)
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְהַבָּשָׂר אֲשֶׁר־יִגַּע בְּכָל־טָמֵא לֹא יֵאָכֵל בָּאֵשׁ יִשָּׂרֵף
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מלאכול כל טמא קדשים. והוא אמרו יתעלה ביולדת בכל קדש לא תגע. ולשון ספרי מה מקדש הנכנס בו בטומאה ענוש כרת אף קדש האוכלו בטומאה ענוש כרת, ויורה זה באמרו לא תגע באיש אשר יאכל קדש בטומאה בזדון כמו שנתבאר במכות, והוא אמרו שם (דף י"ד:) טמא שאכל את הקדש בשלמא עונש דכתיב והנפש אשר תאכל מבשר זבח השלמים אזהרה מנלן אתיא מבכל קדש לא תגע, ושם אמרו אזהרה לאוכל אתה אומר אזהרה לאוכל או אינו אלא לנוגע תלמוד לומר בכל קדש לא תגע ואל המקדש לא תבא מקיש קדש למקדש מה מקדש יש בו נטילת נשמה אף קדש יש בו נטילת נשמה ואי לנגיעה מאי נטילת נשמה איכא אלא לאכילה ואפקיה רחמנא בלשון נגיעה למימרא דנגיעה כאכילה. ומזה הכתוב יתבאר לך שטמא שאכל את הקדש חייב כרת אם היה מזיד ואם היה שוגג יקריב קרבן עולה ויורד כמו שזכרנו בע"ב ממצות עשה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בי"ג מזבחים. (תזריע, הלכות פסולי המוקדשין פי"ח):
He prohibited us from having anyone impure eat sacrificial foods. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying about a woman who has given birth, "No consecrated item shall she touch" (Leviticus 12:4). And the language of the [Sifra] (Sifra, Tazria Parashat Yoledet, Chapter 1:8) is, "Just as one who enters the sanctuary when impure is punished with excision; so too, one who eats consecrated items when impure is punished with excision." And He instructs this in His saying "she shall not touch," about a person that eats consecrated items while impure volitionally, as it is explained in Makkot. And that is their saying there (Makkot 14b), "And an impure person who ate consecrated items [is lashed]. Granted, a punishment [exists], as it is written, 'And the soul that eats from the flesh of a peace-offering [... that soul shall be excised]' (Leviticus 7:20). But from where do we have a prohibition? It comes from, 'No consecrated item shall she touch.'" And there, they said, "This is a prohibition for one who eats. Do you say one who eats [consecrated items while impure]; or perhaps one who touches [them]? [Hence] we learn to say, 'No consecrated item shall she touch, and to the Temple she may not come.' The verse compares consecrated items to the Temple. Just as the Temple involves the taking of a life; so too, do consecrated items involve the taking of a life. And if it is with regards to touching, is there the taking of a life (could such a punishment exist)? Rather, it is with regards to eating." And the [Torah] derived it with the expression of touching, to say that touching is like eating. And from this verse it is made clear to you that one who eats sacrificial foods when impure is liable for excision if he was volitional; and he must offer a variable sacrifice, if it was inadvertent - as we mentioned in Commandment 72 of the Positive Commandments. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in [Chapter] 13 of Zevachim. (See Parashat Tazria; Mishneh Torah, Sacrifices Rendered Unfit 18.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a ritual instruction
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Requires a standing Temple
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
At the hands of Heaven
- Karet — being 'cut off'
Ritual remedy
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: non binding (inoperative absent Temple)
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.221-223 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 3.224-236 The catalog describes this reception as: summarized
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes malkot (flogging) for eating ritually impure sacrificial flesh; post-Enlightenment penal norms reject corporal punishment as a state sanction.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; judicially administered flogging of up to thirty-nine lashes constitutes treatment prohibited by that article under the interpretation of the UN Human Rights Committee.
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abrogated_in_practice
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Both the malkot sanction and the underlying offense are doubly inoperative: the Sanhedrin's capital and corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the destruction of the Second Temple, and the offense itself is temple-dependent and cannot arise in current practice.