Meilah, Chapter 3, Mishnah 1. This chapter opens a discussion of sanctified items that the Torah's meilah never reaches, though the Sages did not leave them free for use. Their standing is captured in the phrase "lo nehenin velo mo'alin": taking benefit from them is forbidden, yet one who did take benefit has committed no meilah. Because the ban on enjoying them comes from the Sages and not from the Torah, no korban meilah follows from having used them.
The mishnah begins with the chamesh chata'ot hametot, five sin offerings whose end is death. Their strangeness stands out against the ordinary handling of a korban that can no longer be offered. As a rule nothing is destroyed: the animal is put out to pasture until a blemish appears in it, and at that point it is redeemed or sold, with the money directed toward a different korban. These five are the exception. A Halacha leMoshe miSinai teaches that a blemish will not permit their redemption; they simply die. Our mishnah asks whether meilah applies to them.
The first three cases
"Velad chatat": a young animal born to a mother who had been designated as a chatat. "Utemurat chatat": an animal exchanged against a chatat. Temurah happens when an owner tries to swap an unconsecrated beast for a consecrated one. Scripture bans that swap, and the outcome is that both animals end up holy: the first loses nothing of its standing, and the newcomer acquires sanctity alongside it. "Vechatat shemetu be'aleha": a chatat whose owner passed away while the offering was still unbrought. Of all three the mishnah rules "yamutu", their fate is death.
What does that mean in practice? We do not send these animals out to graze until they become unfit, as we would with an ordinary disqualified korban, and we also do not put them to death actively. They are shut into a pen and given no food and no water, and they are allowed to die on their own.
Why none of them can be offered
The offspring of a chatat cannot serve as a chatat because it was never consecrated to atone for anyone's sin. Its sanctity is inherited from its mother, but there is no act of designation behind it.
The exchanged animal is likewise unfit to serve as a chatat. Its holiness came into being through the act of substitution, which the Torah prohibits, and sanctity produced by an aveirah may not go on to secure atonement for another aveirah.
A chatat whose owner has died is not offered because there is no longer anyone to atone. A person who has passed away has no capacity to receive kapparah.
Since none of the three can be brought and none of them can be redeemed, they are left to die.
Two more cases: the lost chatat
Three of the five have now been named. The mishnah turns to the remaining two, each of which concerns a chatat that went missing and, on top of that, picked up a disqualification.
Picture the situation. The animal was consecrated as a chatat and then went missing. Its owner took a second animal and consecrated it in its place, but before he actually brought the second one, the original was found. Now he has two animals: the original, which carries sanctity but was lost and also acquired a second defect, and the replacement.
What is that additional flaw? The chatat under discussion is a goat or a lamb, and such an animal is valid only within its first year; once that age has passed it may no longer be offered. Yet age by itself would not condemn it to death, and neither would the loss by itself. Only the two together, an animal that disappeared so that a replacement had to be consecrated, joined to a flaw that renders it unfit, shift its standing into this group of sin offerings whose end is death.
In the mishnah's language: "She'avrah shenatah", a chatat that has outlived its year, meaning it is by now past twelve months, and, as described, it had gone missing and was afterward recovered. "Veshe'avdah venimtse'ah ba'alat mum": alternatively, a chatat which disappeared and, when it turned up, was found to carry a blemish. Age is no obstacle in this case, since the animal is still within its year; the trouble is the mum. Here too it is the blemish paired with the disappearance, during which a second animal was consecrated in its stead, that creates the difficulty and dictates that this animal dies.
If the owner already achieved atonement
"Im mishekipru hab'alim, tamut": should the owner, after the missing animal has turned up, go on to obtain his atonement by means of the substitute, the first animal now dies. Each of the two cases before us involves an original chatat burdened twice over, by the loss and by either its age or its mum, while the owner's kapparah has meanwhile come through a different animal.
"Ve'einah osah temurah": no temurah can be generated by such an animal. Should its owner declare some other beast a swap for it, that beast takes on no sanctity whatsoever.
"Velo nehenin velo mo'alin": benefit from it is forbidden, and yet whoever does benefit has not committed meilah and brings no korban meilah. The pieces fit together. This animal is headed for death. It will never reach the mizbe'ach and it will never be converted into money. Its holiness has, in practical terms, run dry, which is exactly why it produces no temurah and why using it is no meilah. Even so, the Sages forbade enjoying it.
If the owner has not yet achieved atonement
Everything said until now applies where the owner, after recovering the lost animal that had become blemished or had passed its first year, went and brought the second chatat. But if he has not yet brought it, other options remain open to him.
"Im ad shelo kipru hab'alim": if the owner has not yet obtained his kapparah through the replacement chatat, and he wishes to do something with the first animal, then "tir'eh ad shetista'ev", it is sent to pasture until a mum appears on it, "vetimacher veyavi bedameha acheret", whereupon it is sold and a fresh chatat is purchased with the proceeds. At this stage the animal does not belong to the group destined for death. It is nothing more than a disqualified chatat, disqualified by its age or by its blemish, and its owner is still awaiting his atonement.
"Ve'osah temurah umo'alin bah": since a chatat in this position can be sold even once blemished and is not headed for death, the standard laws of korbanot continue to govern it. Hence, if the owner designates some other beast as its exchange, that beast genuinely becomes a temurah, because the original still bears the holiness of a korban and no kapparah has yet been achieved. Meilah too operates here by Torah law: whoever takes benefit from it has transgressed and owes a korban meilah.
The principle is consistent throughout. Where the animal can still be sold and its value channeled into another korban, the sanctity of a korban is fully present, and so both temurah and biblical meilah take effect. Where the animal is destined to die, that sanctity no longer has any outlet, and what remains is only the rabbinic prohibition of benefit.