Meilah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 5. Each mishnah in this chapter follows a particular species of hekdesh from one stage to the next, asking twice over: at what point does liability for meilah attach, and at what point does it fall away? Our mishnah returns to kodshei kodashim, offerings of the highest grade of sanctity, which are bound by meilah already from the instant they are declared hekdesh. Three such offerings are listed here: a sin offering, a guilt offering, and the peace offering brought by the tzibbur.
A chatat is brought not by choice but by obligation. There is a communal chatat, included among the musaf offerings, and there is an individual chatat, brought by a person who unwittingly violated a prohibition that would have carried karet had he transgressed deliberately. The korban asham likewise falls upon an individual as a duty, and Masechet Zevachim enumerates six varieties of it, each with its own triggering circumstance.
The communal shelamim deserves a brief explanation, since the calendar yields it only one time in the year: the two lambs of Shavuot, the kivsei atzeret, offered alongside the two loaves known as shtei halechem. An individual's shelamim ranks as kodashim kalim, and a yisrael may eat from its meat. Not so these lambs. They are classed among kodshei kodashim, which limits their consumption to male kohanim and confines it to the azarah, the Temple courtyard.
The Mishnah
"Chatat ve'asham vezivchei shalmei tzibbur": a sin offering brought from an animal, a guilt offering, and the peace offerings of Klal Yisrael. Regarding all of them the mishnah rules "mo'alin bahen mishehukdashu", that liability for meilah attaches from the instant of consecration, before any avodah whatsoever has been performed with them.
"Nishchatu": once the shechitah has been carried out, these offerings ascend in sanctity, and that ascent brings a new exposure with it. From here on they are capable of being spoiled. "Huchsheru lehipasel", they have become susceptible to disqualification, "bitvul yom uvimchusar kippurim uvlinah": through the touch of a tevul yom, one who has immersed but whose day of purification has not yet closed; through the touch of a mechusar kippurim, one who still awaits the offering that completes his purification; and through linah, blood left standing until morning instead of being applied to the mizbe'ach while the day lasted.
"Nizrak daman": with the blood cast upon the mizbe'ach, a further set of prohibitions takes hold. From this point one who eats the meat may incur karet, "chayavin aleihen mishum piggul", on account of piggul, and equally "notar vetamei", on account of notar and of tumah, whenever the conditions of any of those transgressions are met.
"Ein mo'alin babasar." The zerikah itself lifts the flesh out of the reach of meilah, and the logic is simple: the throwing of the blood is precisely what permits the kohanim to eat. Once food has been handed over for their consumption, it is no longer kodshei Hashem in the exclusive sense, no longer reserved to Heaven alone, and meilah therefore has nothing to grip.
"Aval mo'alin ba'eimurin ad sheyetzu leveit hadeshen." The eimurin, those portions assigned to the fire of the mizbe'ach, stay within the scope of meilah even after they have been consumed by the flames, and they remain so until their ashes are carried away to the place of ashes outside Yerushalayim. This is the exact reverse of the previous ruling about the flesh: no kohen ever acquires a right to eat the eimurin. They belong to the fire of the altar, so their standing as Hashem's own possession is never surrendered. Liability persists, then, until two obligations have been discharged in full: burning them upon the mizbe'ach, and afterward conveying their ashes to the beit hadeshen.