Meilah, Chapter 6, Mishnah 6. This final mishnah of the masechet returns to a theme that has run through the chapter: what happens when hekdesh money becomes entangled with ordinary money, and at what point the one who spends it has actually committed me'ilah. Here the case is a single small coin whose identity has been swallowed up among its neighbors.
Two different routes lead to the same tangle, and the mishnah records both. In the first, a consecrated coin slips out of a person's hand and drops among his money: "perutah shel hekdesh" that "nafela letoch hakis", one hekdesh perutah now lying in a purse together with the profane perutot already inside it. In the second, nothing fell anywhere; the owner simply spoke, "o she'amar", declaring "perutah bekis zeh" to be "hekdesh", sanctifying one coin of the purse without ever pointing to which one. The outcome in both is the same: one of the perutot in that purse belongs to hekdesh, and nothing about it marks it off from the coins beside it.
There was an easy way out available to him. He could have taken the kedushah of that one unidentified coin and transferred it onto another coin, clearing the purse of any sanctity. For whatever reason he did not do so, and the mishnah takes up his situation as it stands.
The Opinion of Rebbi Akiva
"Keivan shehotzi et harishonah ma'al": the moment he draws out the first coin from that purse and spends it, he has committed me'ilah. In truth what he has on his hands is a safek me'ilah, since he has no way of knowing whether the coin he just spent was the hekdesh coin or one of the ordinary ones. He therefore brings an asham taluy, the korban brought by someone who suspects he may have transgressed, in a case where that same transgression, had it been done deliberately, would have obligated him in a korban chatat. Since here everything remains in doubt, the asham taluy provides him a measure of atonement in the meantime, until he learns one way or the other what actually happened.
And if he does eventually learn that he committed me'ilah for certain, for example, he goes on to spend every last coin in that purse, so that the hekdesh perutah was unquestionably among them, he then brings an asham me'ilot, the korban of one who has definitely violated hekdesh. "Divrei Rebbi Akiva": all of this is Rebbi Akiva's position.
The Opinion of the Chachamim
The Sages disagree from the outset. "Vachachamim omrim", and the chachamim say, that he owes nothing until "ad sheyotzi", until he removes and spends, "et kol hakis", the entire contents of the purse. At that stage the violation is beyond dispute, and he brings the ordinary asham me'ilot required of anyone who has misused hekdesh. Before that stage he brings nothing whatever. True, the very first coin he spent may well have been the consecrated one, yet in the view of the chachamim a suspected me'ilah generates no asham taluy at all. That korban was instituted only for a doubt about a sin whose intentional form would call for a chatat, and me'ilah is not such a sin: its own korban is the asham me'ilot, not a chatat. A person left wondering whether he transgressed therefore offers nothing, and only a completed, certain me'ilah puts an asham in his hands.
The Case Where Rebbi Akiva Agrees
Everything until now rested on the assumption that his words fixed the kedushah on one coin at once, so that the purse was immediately clouded by doubt. The mishnah ends by recording a different wording, one in which Rebbi Akiva himself grants that no doubt is ever created: "modeh Rebbi Akiva", Rebbi Akiva concedes, in the case of a man who declares "perutah min hakis zeh", a perutah out of this purse, to be "hekdesh". Phrased that way, the sanctity comes to rest on whichever coin is still there when the rest are gone.
The practical result follows directly: "shehu motzi veholech", he keeps drawing coins out and using them, one after the next, without any question of me'ilah arising, and he may continue "ad sheyotzi kol hakis", until the purse is emptied of all but one. The perutah left at the bottom is the consecrated one, and that is the single coin barred to him. Under this wording Rebbi Akiva finds no transgression at any stage of the process.
Hadran alach Masechet Me'ilah.