Meilah, Chapter 4, Mishnah 2. This chapter is built around a single principle: when several substances are all bound up in one halachic category, they join together to make up the minimum measure that creates liability. Our mishnah applies that principle first to the korbanot and then, in its second half, moves on to the gifts that belong to the kohanim.
The Five Parts of the Olah
"Chamisha devarim ba'olah": within a single olah there are five items, and they are "mitztarfin zeh im zeh," each joining with the others so that together they can bring a person to liability. The mishnah names them: "habasar vehachelev, vehasolet vehayayin vehashemen." Basar is the animal's meat. Chelev refers to the fats designated for the mizbe'ach. Solet is the fine flour of the minchat nesachim brought alongside the offering. Yayin is the wine poured as a libation. Shemen means the oil belonging to those same nesachim.
These five join together for three different prohibitions:
- Me'ilah: deriving a perutah's worth of benefit from these items, whichever of them and in whatever proportion.
- Pigul, notar and tameh: consuming a kezayit made up of any mixture of the five.
- Offering outside the Beit Hamikdash: burning up a kezayit drawn from them in any proportion beyond the Mikdash.
The point of the mishnah is that all five are treated as a single korban. One might have reasoned otherwise: the flour is not flesh of the animal at all, the wine and oil are not part of its body, so perhaps each stands on its own and only a full measure of one substance creates liability. Kama mashma lan, the mishnah teaches us that this is not so. They fuse into one entity, and a measure assembled from all of them together obligates a person exactly as a measure of one would.
The Six Parts of the Todah
"Veshisha batodah." In a todah offering there are six components that combine: "habasar vehachelev, vehasolet vehayayin, vehashemen, vehalechem." The meat, the fats, the flour, the wine, the oil, and in addition the loaves of bread that accompany a todah.
Here, however, only one of the three prohibitions applies. Together they can add up to a kezayit for pigul, notar and tameh. But there is no me'ilah with a todah, because a todah is kodashim kalim, and the laws of me'ilah do not apply to kodashim kalim. And there is no liability for offering a kezayit of these items outside the Beit Hamikdash, because that prohibition attaches only to items that are destined for the mizbe'ach, and the todah is not consumed on the mizbe'ach; its portions are eaten by the kohanim and by the owner.
Terumah and Its Relatives
Having established that holy items combine with one another to create liability, the mishnah now turns to other groups of foods that join together to form a halachic minimum for other laws.
Five further items now appear. First "haterumah," the terumah itself, and alongside it "uterumat ma'aser," and after that "uterumat ma'aser shel demai," and finally "hachallah vehabikurim." Each of them deserves a definition:
- Terumah: what the farmer sets aside from his crop for a kohen, in practice something in the range of two percent.
- Terumat ma'aser: once terumah has been removed, a tenth of the remaining produce is designated ma'aser rishon, which belongs to the Levi. The Levi in turn tithes that portion, and the tenth he removes from it goes to a kohen. That tenth of a tenth is terumat ma'aser.
- Terumat ma'aser shel demai: demai is produce acquired from an am ha'aretz, concerning which we cannot be sure that the terumot and ma'asrot were ever taken. In the face of that uncertainty the chachamim required the purchaser to separate the tithes on his own, and among the portions he removes is the terumat ma'aser of demai. Its status rests on a safek, yet a zar is still barred from eating it.
- Challah: when a person kneads a batch of dough, a share of it goes to a kohen, and that share carries the halachot of terumah.
- Bikurim: the earliest produce of the seven species with which Eretz Yisrael is praised, carried up to the Beit Hamikdash and handed over there to a kohen.
What all of these share is that only kohanim may eat them.
How They Combine
"Mitztarfin zeh im zeh," they join together, "le'esor," in order to prohibit. Their quantities are added up to reach the amount that renders another food forbidden. Picture a lump of terumah leaven that drops into a batch of chullin dough: the entire batch is now off limits to anyone who is not a kohen, even though the terumah inside it is only a tiny fraction of the mass. Now picture a bit of terumah leaven and a bit of terumat ma'aser leaven each landing in that dough, with neither one on its own sufficient to leaven the batch. The mishnah rules that the two are reckoned as a single substance, and the batch is altogether prohibited to a zar.
"Ulechayev aleihen et hachomesh." They also combine to obligate a non-kohen in the added fifth. The halachah is that a non-kohen who eats a kezayit of terumah must repay what he ate and add a fifth calculated on the final sum, which works out to a quarter of the original amount, and he pays it to a kohen. That obligation begins only at a kezayit. Our mishnah teaches that the kezayit need not be of one substance alone: a kezayit assembled from all of these items together also obligates him, and he pays the higher sum to the kohen from whom he took it.