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The sugya in Zevachim 29b probes one of the most conceptually difficult corners of sacrificial law: how the intention (machshavah) of the officiant transforms or invalidates a korban. It does so by comparing two legal structures—temurah, the forbidden substitution of sanctity from one animal to another, and pigul, the invalidation of an offering through improper intention regarding time or place. Both appear, at first glance, to concern human interference with holiness. Yet only temurah incurs malkot (lashes), while pigul, though metaphysically severe, does not. The discrepancy invites a profound question about the boundaries of culpability in halakhic thought.
Reb Chaim Soloveitchik’s reading of this sugya, preserved in his Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim HaLevi (1), provides a foundational model for what would become the derekh ha-Brisk—a method that conceptualizes halakhic phenomena through analytic dichotomies which we discuss.