Negaim, Chapter 14, Mishnah 12. Our perek has been following the purification of the metzora and the korbanos he brings on the eighth day, a subject laid out at the beginning of parshas Metzora. Here, as throughout, Rebbi Yehuda HaNasi assumes that the learner knows the parshah well and builds his mishnah on that knowledge. This mishnah asks a practical question: what happens when the metzora's financial situation changes in the middle of the process?
The background: the korbanos of a poor metzora and a wealthy one
A metzora of means brings three animals: a male lamb as an asham, a ewe lamb as a chatas, and a second male lamb as an olah. A poor metzora also brings a male lamb for the asham, since that he must bring in every case, but in place of the animal chatas and olah he brings two birds, two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one as a chatas ha'of and one as an olas ha'of. The asham is always offered first, because its blood is needed at once for the opening stage of the purification, when the blood is placed on the metzora's tenuch ozen, on his bohen yad and on his bohen regel. Of the chatas and the olah, the chatas comes first.
The case of the mishnah
"Metzora shehevi korbano ani vehe'eshir, o ashir vehe'eni." A metzora brought his korban as a poor man and then became wealthy, or he brought it as a wealthy man and then became poor. He has already brought the asham, the lamb required of rich and poor alike, and he has brought along with it either the two birds or the two lambs. Then his circumstances change before the process is finished. At what point is his status fixed, so that the remaining korbanos follow it?
Two Tanna'im dispute the matter. Rebbi Shimon rules "hakol holeich achar chatas": the whole determination is made by the sin offering. Rebbi Yehuda disagrees and says "achar ha'asham", that the guilt offering is what sets his standing.
Rebbi Shimon: the chatas
Rebbi Shimon reasons, as the Rav sets out, from the place where the two categories of metzora part ways. The asham is identical for both of them, a male lamb in either case. Where their obligations diverge is with the sin offering and the elevation offering: a man of means brings animals for these two, whereas a poor man discharges both with a pair of birds, turtledoves or young pigeons. Since the chatas belongs to that area of difference, it is the chatas that establishes which sort of metzora he is.
The practical result is this. Suppose he was still poor at the moment his sin offering was brought, and it was accordingly a bird. Even if wealth reaches him only afterward, he carries the sequence through as a poor man and finishes with a bird for his elevation offering. The mirror case works the same way: if he possessed means when his animal chatas was offered, and poverty struck him only later, he stays on the path he began and brings an animal for the olah too. On Rebbi Shimon's approach, then, the dispute has practical consequences for a single offering alone, the elevation offering that is still owed, since the asham never varies and the chatas is already behind him.
Rebbi Yehuda: the asham
Rebbi Yehuda looks not at where rich and poor differ but at where they are the same. The Rav explains: "debi'asham shavim ani ve'ashir", in the asham the poor man and the wealthy man are equal, "vehu rishon lekorbanos hametzora", and it is the first of the metzora's korbanos, "u'meyuchad letahoraso yoser mikulan", and it is bound up with his purification more than any of the others. It is the asham that is waved as a tenufah together with the log of oil, and it is the blood of the asham that is placed on the tenuch ozno, on his bohen yado and on his bohen raglo. No other korban plays such a role in his taharah.
One pasuk, two readings
The Rav notes that "shneihem mikra echad darshu", both Tanna'im derive their view from the same pasuk, "asher lo sasig yado betahoraso", that which he cannot afford at the time of his purification. Rebbi Shimon understands tahoraso as his kaparah, and therefore looks to "davar hamachapero", the offering that atones for him, which is the chatas, for a chatas by its nature comes to atone. Rebbi Yehuda understands tahoraso as "davar hamachshiro u'metahero", the offering that renders him fit and purifies him, enabling him once again to eat from korbanos, and that is the asham, which here is the korban of a mechusar kaparah.
The halachah
We rule like Rebbi Yehuda. Whatever his financial standing was when the asham was offered, that standing governs everything that follows. Was he a man of means at that moment? He brings a ewe lamb as his chatas and a male lamb as his olah, even though poverty has overtaken him since. Was he poor at that moment? He completes the service with the pair of birds, one brought as a sin offering and one as an elevation offering, even though he has since come into wealth. Here our mishnah closes.