Meilah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 1. The first perek dealt with korbanot that had become invalid, asking in each case whether the laws of meilah still apply to them. This perek turns to korbanot that are perfectly valid, and traces them through the avodah: at which stage does a korban become subject to meilah, at which stage does it leave meilah behind, and which other halachot attach to it along the way.
The subject here is the chatat ha'of, a chatat brought from among the birds, either a turtledove or a fledgling pigeon. This is the offering of someone who owes a chatat yet lacks the means to purchase an animal for it. The list includes a metzora whose tzara'at has healed and whose hand does not reach the usual chatat, a yoledet, a zav or a zavah, and a nazir who contracted tumah from a human corpse.
The three stages of the avodat hadam
With a bird korban, the avodah performed with the blood unfolds in three acts.
- Melikah. This is the unique form of slaughter reserved for birds alone. Working from behind, the kohen uses the nail of his own thumb, driving it through the nape of the bird.
- Haza'ah. Holding the bird itself, the kohen raises and lowers it in a sprinkling motion, and blood spatters from it onto the altar.
- Mitzuy. The kohen presses the cut neck to the altar's wall and wrings out whatever blood is still inside, letting it flow down toward the yesod.
Once the blood service is finished, the bird chatat is eaten by the kohanim. No part of it is burned on the mizbe'ach.
From the moment of dedication
The mishnah's first ruling is "Chatat ha'of mo'alin bah mishehukdeshah," meaning that meilah takes hold in a bird chatat from the instant of its consecration. The moment its owner designates this particular bird as his chatat, it carries kedushah, and one who benefits from it has committed meilah. This flows from the rule we already know: a chatat belongs to kodshei kodashim, the more severe grade of sanctity, and offerings of that grade fall under meilah right away.
"Nimlekah": what melikah adds
"Nimlekah, huchsherah lehipasel bitvul yom uvimechusar kippurim uvelinah." Once the melikah has been performed, the bird rises to a further level of holiness, and with that comes a new vulnerability: from this point it can be disqualified in three ways.
The first is being handled by a tvul yom. Such a person contracted tumah, went down to the mikveh that same day, and now awaits only erev shemesh, the setting of the sun, to finish becoming tahor. A trace of his tumah lingers with him until the stars appear, and during those hours both kodesh and terumah are closed to him, whether for eating or for handling. If his hand reaches them while daylight remains, they are ruined and no one may eat them.
The second is being handled by a mechusar kippurim, one whose atonement is still incomplete. A zav, a zavah, someone healed of tzara'at, or a yoledet may already have immersed and may already have seen the sun set, and yet the korbanot that finish off the purification process remain unbrought. Until those offerings are presented, the taharah they are striving toward is not yet fully in their hands.
The third is linah, blood held past its time. Should night fall while the blood has still not been placed upon the altar, the blood is thereby invalidated, and the offering as a whole goes down with it.
Melikah therefore establishes two new realities in a single stroke. From that point on, one who is a mechusar kippurim, or one who is a tvul yom, can spoil the bird merely by touching it, and from that point on the blood carries a deadline that expires when the day does.
"Hutzah damah": after the blood is placed on the mizbe'ach
"Hutzah damah, chayavin aleha mishum pigul, notar, vetamei." With the blood now upon the altar, karet attaches to eating the flesh of this offering in each of the three circumstances where these prohibitions come into play.
- Pigul. Should the kohen performing the melikah intend that the bird be eaten beyond the hours designated for it, the offering becomes pigul. Once the blood has reached the altar, whoever eats from such an offering is liable to karet.
- Notar. Where no such intention spoiled it, but someone eats its flesh after the permitted hours have run out, that is notar, and karet applies here too.
- Tamei. And one who is himself in a state of tumah and eats of this flesh is equally liable to karet.
And here is the key point in all three cases: the liability of karet only begins once the blood has already been placed on the mizbe'ach.
"Ve'ein bah me'ilah"
The mishnah's last words are "ve'ein bah me'ilah." From the moment the blood reaches the altar, the flesh of the bird chatat stands outside the halachot of meilah. It has turned into food that the kohanim are entitled to eat, and wherever eating is permitted, meilah has nothing to apply to.