Meilah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 8. Our chapter has been tracing, korban by korban, the two turning points in the life of every offering: the moment it first becomes vulnerable to me'ilah, and the moment me'ilah departs from it. Here the Mishnah turns to the menachot, the flour offerings that are partly burned on the mizbe'ach and partly eaten by the kohanim.
How a Mincha Was Brought
The Mishnah assumes we picture the avodah. A person arrived at the azarah with his fine flour and set it inside a k'li shareit, a vessel consecrated for service. He poured oil over the flour and placed levonah upon it, and then gave the vessel to a kohen. The kohen brought it over to the mizbe'ach, to the corner at its southwest, and there the service opened.
The avodah of a mincha unfolds in four stages, and each stage parallels one of the four blood services of an animal korban:
- Kemitzah. With his hand closed, the kohen scoops out a fistful from the mincha. This stands opposite shechitah, the act that brings the blood out of the animal.
- Matan ba'keli. That kometz is deposited into a second k'li shareit, mirroring kabalat hadam, the catching of the blood in a vessel once the animal has been slaughtered.
- Holachah. The kometz is conveyed over to the mizbe'ach, precisely as the vessel of blood is conveyed there.
- Haktarah. The kometz is burned upon the mizbe'ach, parallel to zerikah, when the blood is dashed against the mizbe'ach.
Once the kometz has gone up in flames, the remainder of the mincha, the shirayim, belongs to the kohanim to eat.
The Mishnah
"Hamenachot mo'alin bahen mishehukdeshu." Me'ilah attaches to the menachot from the moment they are consecrated. As soon as a person declares that this flour and this oil are set aside for a korban mincha, they acquire kedushat damim, and from that instant anyone who eats them or derives benefit from them has transgressed me'ilah, with all the consequences and payments that we learned earlier in the masechet.
"Kadshu ba'keli": once the mincha has been sanctified in the k'li shareit, its kedushah climbs to a higher rung, and with that height comes exposure. Now "huchsheru lehipasel", it has become capable of being disqualified, in three ways. "Bi'tvul yom": if someone who immersed but whose day has not yet ended touches it, it becomes pasul. "U'vimchusar kippurim": so too if it is touched by one who still owes his purification korban. "U've'linah": and so too if the kometz was not brought up to the mizbe'ach while the day lasted and the mincha was left standing beyond its permitted time.
"Karav hakometz": with the kometz already burned upon the mizbe'ach, a new layer of liability opens up for whoever eats the remainder. From this point one is "chayavin aleha", liable to karet, on three counts: "mishum pigul", "notar", "ve'tamei":
- Pigul. Should the kohen, while performing any one of those four avodot, harbor the intention that the shirayim be eaten, or the kometz burned, past the time allotted for it, the mincha is pigul, and whoever eats from the remainder once the kometz has been offered bears the liability.
- Notar. Where the kometz was offered as it should be, but someone eats from the remainder after its permitted hours have run out, that eating is notar.
- Tamei. Where the kometz was offered as it should be, and the one eating from the remainder is himself in a state of tumah, he too incurs karet.
Where Me'ilah Ends and Where It Continues
"Ve'ein mo'alin bashirayim." Once the kometz has gone onto the mizbe'ach, me'ilah no longer applies to what is left. The remainder has been permitted to the kohanim, and something permitted to a human being is no longer kodshei Hashem, no longer the exclusive property of Heaven, and therefore no longer subject to me'ilah.
"Aval mo'alin bakometz": with the kometz the picture is reversed. Not a soul is ever allowed to benefit from it; it is handed over entirely to the mizbe'ach. Since it stays kodshei Hashem throughout, me'ilah clings to it "ad sheyeitzei lebeit hadeshen", until its burning is finished and every last service still owed to it has been discharged, the hava'ah included, conveying its ashes to the beit hadeshen, a depository for ashes situated outside Yerushalayim. It is never food for anyone, and only when each stage bound up with it has been completed, down to that final disposal of its ashes, does me'ilah release it.