have been cooked in a frying pan or pot over a stove, rather than baked in an oven. If these were baked as bread in an oven, they would still require the separation of the dough-offering. A quantity of dough equalling 1.6 kilogram or more which was prepared to make hardened biscuits (Hebrew: qanūḇqa’ot) requires the separation of the dough offering. In Halakha The halakhic sources for the mitzvah are Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 322 and Mishneh Torah Bikkurim Chapter 5 Section 1. The mitzvah of challah is believed by some textual scholars to originate in the priestly source and to postdate the Challah law codes as presented in the Torah. Rabbinical interpretations Challah, as one of the twenty-four kohanic gifts, was a means of sustenance for the kohanim, who, because of their expected full-time involvement with Temple duties and Torah instruction, were not intended to have land or income derived from it, unlike the other tribes of Israel (although this was often not the case during the Second Temple era). Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno reasons that God wished to negate the negative effect of the sin of The Twelve Spies by establishing this Mitzvah in order that bracha ("divine blessing") should rest in the homes of and on the dough products of the Jews. Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz explains that the Land of Israel is sustained by rainfall, whereas crops in Egypt are irrigated by the waters of the Nile river which requires human intervention, making it logical that the first fruits of Israel be presented to God who brings its rainfall. Other insights on the symbolism of Challah appear in Midrashic and Kabbalistic literature. The Mitzvah of separating challah is traditionally regarded as one of the three Mitzvot performed especially by women (Mishnah, Shabbos 2:6). In some Kabbalistic literature, such as Shlomo HaKohain of Greece's commentary on the Zohar, the performing of this commandment by women, who traditionally did the cooking, uplifts the dough from a state of tevel (spiritual non-readiness) and brings it to a state of khullin (mundane and permitted to its owner), thereby correcting the action of Eve who gave of the forbidden fruit to her husband. The components of the Mitzvah The mitzvah of challah is one mitzvah with two parts: (1) separating the required dough (Hafrashat challah), (2) giving the dough to a Kohen (Netinat Challah). Nachmanides as well as the Tosafist Isaiah di