Meilah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 9. Throughout this chapter we have been tracing when meilah and the other laws of consecrated food take hold in korbanot whose eating or burning depends on a matir, a permitting act. Until that act is performed, nothing of the korban may be eaten. Our mishnah turns to the opposite category: items that are consumed entirely on the mizbeach, either because they themselves are the permitter or because they simply have no permitter at all.
The five items listed
"Hakometz": the handful taken from a minchah and burned in full on the mizbeach, while the remainder of the minchah is eaten by the kohanim.
"Vehalevonah": the frankincense that is set upon nearly every minchah and ascends in fire on the mizbeach alongside the handful.
"Vehaketoret": the blend of spices burned on the golden mizbeach within the Heichal, once each morning and again toward evening, with the entire measure going up in smoke there.
"Uminchat kohanim": a minchah brought by a kohen, which is burned in its entirety with nothing left over to be eaten.
"Uminchat kohen mashiach": the kohen gadol's daily chavitin, twelve loaves in all, six brought at Shacharit and the remaining six later in the day, the whole of it likewise going up in fire on the mizbeach.
"Uminchat nesachim": the minchah that accompanies an olah or a shelamim. Every such offering is brought together with a minchah, which goes up entirely on the mizbeach, along with the wine that is poured out there.
What unites all of these is that nothing of them is ever eaten, and none of them waits on a permitting act. They are wholly for the mizbeach.
Meilah from the moment of consecration
"Moalin bahen mishehukdeshu": meilah attaches to them as soon as they are dedicated. Because their entire purpose from the start is to be consumed in fire, they count as kodshei Hashem in the fullest sense right away, and that standing stays with them until they are taken out to the beit hadeshen, the ash heap outside Yerushalayim; arriving there is what ends their liability to meilah. Ketoret works differently on this point: it is never carried out to that place, but is sunk into the ground of the azarah, and once it has been put there meilah no longer applies to it.
Placement in a keli sharet
"Kadshu bekeli": each of these is sanctified by being set into a sacred vessel, and with that their kedushah is raised a level, which is precisely what exposes them to the various pesulim. So the mishnah continues: "huchsheru lehipasel", they have now become capable of being invalidated, "bitvul yom", by the touch of one who immersed but whose day has not yet ended, "uvimchusar kipurim", or of one who still owes his purification offerings, "uvelinah", or by being kept beyond their appointed time without having gone up in fire on the mizbeach.
"Vechayavin aleihen", one bears liability for them, "mishum notar", that is, karet for eating them after the hour for burning them has passed, "umishum tame", and karet for eating them in a condition of tumah. In the korbanot treated earlier in the chapter, both of these liabilities wait for the matir to be brought. Here there is nothing to wait for: with no permitting act in the picture, the obligation begins the instant the item enters a sacred vessel.
"Upiggul ein bahen": piggul, on the other hand, does not apply to any of them. Piggul is a category that exists only where there is a matir, and these five have none.
Zeh haklal
"Zeh haklal": the mishnah now sets out the general principle governing all three karet categories. "Kol sheyesh lo matirin", any offering that has a permitting act, "ein chayavin alav", carries no liability, "mishum piggul, notar, vetame", on the count of piggul, of notar, or of eating in tumah, "ad sheyikrevu matirav", until its permitter has been brought upon the mizbeach.
Take an olah as an illustration. The blood must first be applied to the mizbeach, and that act is what permits the flesh to be burned. Until the zerikat hadam, therefore, none of the three categories are in force. Once the blood has been placed on the mizbeach, piggul, notar and tame all come into play.
"Vechol she'ein lo matirin", and anything that lacks a permitting act, whether because the item is itself what permits others or because it was never dependent on any permitter at all, "keivan shekadash bakeli", once it has been sanctified in a sacred vessel, "chayavin alav", liability to karet is already in force, "mishum notar", should someone eat it after its appointed hour, "umishum tame", or should a person eat it while tamei. But "piggul ein bo": piggul finds no foothold, since that prohibition is built upon the existence of a matir, and in these cases there is none.