Kinnim, Chapter 3, Mishnah 6. This is the closing mishnah of the masechet, and with it we close the entire Seder Kodashim. The chapter has been building case upon case of birds that were confused, misassigned or offered in the wrong place, and here the Mishnah gathers all of that into one long, layered scenario, adding a new variable at each stage.
The Case: A Vow Tied to Childbirth
The Mishnah begins with "ha'isha she'amra", a woman who made a declaration. Her words were "harei alai ken", a kan is incumbent upon me, and she attached a condition: "keshe'eled zachar", should I give birth to a male. She has thus taken on a nedavah, a donated kan, dependent on the birth of a son. The Mishnah continues: "yalda zachar", the birth comes and it is indeed a boy, "mevia shtei kinnim", and she now places two kinnim before the kohen, "achat lenidrah ve'achat lechovatah", the one to settle her pledge and the other for what the birth itself demands of her.
What does the Torah ask of a woman who has given birth? A sheep as her olah together with a bird as her chatat. Where the sheep lies beyond her means, a second bird takes its place and serves as the olah. Our mishnah is dealing with a woman of limited means, so her chovah amounts to a kan of two birds, one raised as an olah and one brought as a chatat. The pledged kan operates by a different rule: a nedavah kan goes up in its entirety, both of its birds offered above as olot.
"Netanatam lakohen": the four birds pass into the kohen's hands so that he may offer them for her. The Mishnah spells out his assignment: "vehakohen tzarich la'asot", the kohen is required to perform, "shalosh peridim milma'lan", three of the birds up above, "ve'achat milmatan", with only one of them down below. The three above are all olot: the two birds of her nedavah plus the olah that her chovah requires. The single bird below is the chatat of that chovah.
When the Kohen Errs
Then comes the twist. "Lo asa ken": the kohen departed from that plan. "Ela asa shtayim lema'la", he set two of them above, "ushtayim lemata", and two below, "velo nimlach", never having inquired of her what the birds were designated for; he simply took it for granted that both kinnim were standard chovah pairs. The halachah that follows is: "tzericha lehavi od perida achat", one more bird is owed by her, "veyakrivena lema'la", and it is to be offered above.
The reason is straightforward once the accounting is laid out. Her vow pair was meant to be two olot. Instead, one of those two birds was offered below as a chatat. She is therefore short one olah, and a single extra bird offered above completes what she owes.
"Mi'min echad": everything stated until now assumes that all four birds were of a single type, either torim (doves) throughout or bnei yonah (young pigeons) throughout. "Mishnei minim, tavi shtayim": where the two kinnim came from separate types, doves in the one and pigeons in the other, and the kohen dealt with each kan as though it were a chovah, retaining no memory of which of them he handled at the outset, her remedy is two additional birds, one dove and one pigeon, both of them offered above as olot.
Here is the logic. Had the kohen acted properly, he would have designated one pair as the obligation and the other as the vow, and everything would have been in order. Since he treated both as obligatory pairs, the pair he offered first counts as her obligation, and the second pair is the vow pair that was mishandled: it received a chatat and an olah instead of two olot. So one olah is missing, and it must be made up from the same species as that second pair. But she has no way of knowing whether that second pair was the doves or the pigeons. She therefore brings one of each, covering both possibilities.
Adding a Variable: She Specified the Species
The Mishnah now returns to a case of two kinnim of one type and layers on a fresh detail: "peresha nidrah", her vow named the type she would bring, tor or ben yonah, and which one she named has slipped from her memory. Two kinnim of a single type were set before the kohen, and the second of them he handled wrongly, splitting it into a chatat and an olah when both birds belonged above. The halachah here is "tzericha lehavi od shalosh peridim", three further birds are required of her: one matching the type already in the kohen's hands, and two of the other type.
Work the accounting through. Say her vow was for torim. Whichever kan the kohen dealt with first is credited toward her chovah. The kan he dealt with second was mishandled, one bird above and one below, and the bird sent below as a chatat is where the trouble lies. If the type she is holding turns out to be the type she named, one further bird of it, raised as an olah, completes her nedavah. But perhaps the type she named was the other one, in which case nothing of her vow has been discharged and she needs a whole kan, two birds of that other type, both above. Three birds together take care of both branches.
"Mi'min echad": that count of three holds where all the birds she brought were of one type. "Mishnei minim, tavi arba": where the two kinnim were of differing types, a kan of doves and a kan of pigeons, and the kohen handled each of them as a chovah kan with no recollection of the order, she owes four birds more, two torim and two bnei yonah, the entire set raised above as olot.
Two things have been lost track of at once here: the type she named in her vow, and the kan the kohen began with. Her nedavah kan could only be the one dealt with second, since whatever came first is credited automatically to her chovah. Should the kohen have started with the very type she vowed, that kan went wholly toward her chovah and her vow was never touched, leaving her a complete kan of that type to bring. Since each of the two types is a candidate for having been named, and each is a candidate for having gone first, she brings a full kan of both.
A Further Layer: Linking the Nedavah to the Chovah
"Kava'a nidrah": beyond naming a type, she also tied her pledge to her chovah kan, declaring that her donated kan would match the type of the olah of her obligation. The ruling is "tzericha lehavi od", she must bring in addition, "chamesh peridim", five birds: one olah of the type the kohen has already handled, and beyond that two torim and two bnei yonah, so that not a shred of doubt remains about her pledge.
"Mi'min echad": that is where a single type made up both kinnim. "Mishnei minim, tavi shesh": if the two kinnim laid before the kohen were of two types, one of torim and one of bnei yonah, and he treated each as a chovah kan, a chatat and an olah in both, and cannot say which of them came first, then six birds are due. A kan of doves and a kan of pigeons, because the type she named is forgotten, and one more dove and one more pigeon to be attached to them, because which type functioned as her chovah is likewise unknown. Providing both attachments leaves no possibility uncovered.
The Final Case: Nobody Remembers Anything
The last case piles everything together: her vow named a type, that type is forgotten, and the pledge was tied to her chovah kan. "Netanatam lakohen", she handed the two kinnim over, "ve'eno yode'a mah natna", and she cannot say what she gave him, whether doves throughout, pigeons throughout, or one kan of each. "Halach hakohen ve'asa", the kohen proceeded to offer them, "ve'eno yode'a mah asa", and he too cannot say what he did, whether all of them as chata'ot, all as olot, or two and two.
The verdict: "tzericha lehavi", she must bring, "od arba'ah peridim lenidrah", four additional birds on account of her pledge, all of them offered as olot, namely a kan of torim and a kan of bnei yonah, since the type she specified is beyond recall; "ushtayim lechovatah", two toward the olah of her chovah, one from each type; "vechatat achat", and a lone chatat, of whichever type she wishes. Seven birds in total.
"Ben Azzai omer", Ben Azzai's ruling, "shtei chata'ot", doubles that final item: not a single chatat but two of them, a tor and a ben yonah. His position, encountered earlier in the masechet, is that whichever bird of a chovah kan is offered first sets the type for its partner as well, and this applies whether that bird went up as an olah or down as a chatat. That leaves him one further doubt to reckon with: perhaps among the four birds she originally gave, one did in fact function correctly as her chovah olah, and since its type cannot be identified, the chatat must be able to correspond to it. Providing a chatat of each type settles the matter.
Look at what the arithmetic has become. Handled properly from the start, this woman's entire obligation would have amounted to four birds, one kan for her chovah and one for her pledge, and the matter would have been finished. Because of a faulty offering, a specification she can no longer recall, and a kohen who cannot reconstruct his own actions, she is left owing seven birds beyond those four in the view of the Tanna Kamma, and eight beyond them in the view of Ben Azzai.
The Ram Whose Voice Is Seven
At this point the Mishnah cites a popular expression, brought in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua, showing how one small mishap can blossom into a whole apparatus. "Amar Rabbi Yehoshua", Rabbi Yehoshua said, "zehu she'amru", this is the familiar saying concerning a ram: "keshehu chai", while it lives, "kolo echad", it has but one voice, the bleat that comes from its mouth. "Ucheshehu met", once it has died, "kolo shiv'ah", its voice numbers seven.
"Keitzad kolo shiv'ah?" In what way does a dead ram produce seven? "Shtei karnav", its two horns, serve as "shtei chatzotzrot", a pair of trumpets. "Shtei shokav", the two thigh bones, become "shenei chalilim", two flutes. "Oro letof", the hide is fashioned into a drum. "Me'av linvalim", the stomach supplies the resonating body of a nevel. "Bnei me'av lechinorot", the intestines are drawn out as strings for kinorot. "Veyesh omrim", some add, "af tzamro litechelet", that even the wool is dyed techelet, for the me'il worn by the Kohen Gadol, along whose hem hung bells that rang as he entered the Kodesh and as he came back out.
Seven sounds emerge from one ram once he is gone, and seven birds emerge from one straightforward pair of kinnim once everything has gone wrong in how it was offered.
The Closing Teaching of Seder Kodashim
The Mishnah, and with it the whole Seder, closes with a statement about age and wisdom. "Rabbi Shimon ben Akashya omer", Rabbi Shimon ben Akashya taught: "ziknei am ha'aretz", as for the aged among those without learning, "kol zeman shemazkinin", the further they advance in years, "da'atan mitarefet aleihen", the more their minds come apart. "Shene'emar", and the proof is a pasuk in Iyov: "mesir safah lene'emanim", He withdraws the words of those who were relied upon, "veta'am zekenim yikach", and the discernment of elders He takes away. That verse has ordinary people in mind, and indeed the phrase am ha'aretz appears in a verse nearby.
"Aval ziknei Torah einan ken": with the elders of Torah the reverse is true. "Ela kol zeman shemazkinin", the longer their years stretch on, "da'atan mityashevet aleihen", the steadier and more composed their thinking becomes. "Shene'emar", as that very passage states: "bishishim chochmah", wisdom belongs to the aged, "ve'orech yamim tevunah", and length of days brings understanding.
Hadran alach Masechet Kinnim, and hadran alach Seder Kodashim in its entirety. Vehadrach alan. May we merit to take up Seder Taharot together.