We now begin our study, and I would like to devote this time to listening to an introduction that frames all of the topics before us. We jump straight into the deep water with the first mishnah, which already focuses on the disqualification caused by the kohen's intent during the service - when the offering he had in mind is not the correct offering. This mishnah closely parallels the first mishnah in Maseches Zevachim.
The Four Blood Services in Animal Offerings:
With zevachim, offerings from living creatures, there are four essential blood services, which are the primary indispensable steps. If the kohen entertains certain disqualifying thoughts while performing them, it can invalidate the entire offering:
"Shechitah" - slaughtering the animal.
"Kabbalah" - receiving the blood that flows from the animal.
"Holachah" - carrying the blood that was received in the service vessel to the altar.
"Zerikah" - placing that blood on the altar.
Four parallel stages apply to a meal offering. In place of extracting the blood - the kemitzah.
The Kemitzah:
The kemitzah is the removal of a full fistful, a handful, from the meal offering. The meal offering itself is a mixture of fine flour and oil, and its texture is like the texture of peanut butter - not lumpy but smooth and oily. That is roughly what it feels like.
The kohen, as it were, thrusts his hand into the meal offering, and the way the hand is formed is that he bends the three middle fingers: the index finger, the middle finger and the ring finger. In Hebrew the fingers have names of their own:
"Gudal" - the thumb.
"Etzba" - the pointing or index finger.
"Amah" - the middle finger.
"Kemitzah" - the fourth finger, from the same word as our kemitzah here.
"Zeres" - the little finger.
So he folds the three middle fingers, bending them down to the farthest point they reach on the palm of the hand. In modern Hebrew this part is called the 'kaf ha'yad', but in the Mishnah and Gemara it is called the pas (spelled peh and samech). He extends his three fingers as far as they can go, meaning he does not bend the farthest joint but only the second joint; the fingers remain straight at the last joint and stretch across the pas as far as they can.
Anyone who tries this with his own hands, using only the three middle fingers, will see that a hollow space is formed beneath those three fingers. The volume of that space is such that if you do this with your right hand - and this is indeed a right handed service - you can insert the little finger of your left hand snugly into the small pocket that is formed. That pocket is the place where the kometz will ultimately come to rest. The kohen pushes his hand, as though driving it, into the mixture of flour and oil, and a fistful of flour gets packed in there. This is the first stage, the removal of that portion, corresponding to the slaughtering and the extraction of the blood.
The Four Services of the Meal Offering:
Kemitzah - the removal of the kometz, corresponding to the shechitah.
Placing it in a vessel - putting the kometz into a separate, sanctified service vessel, corresponding to receiving the blood that flows from the animal.
Holachah - carrying the service vessel that holds the portion which will go up on the altar, the kometz, together with the levonah that was set aside, if there is levonah, as there is in most menachos.
Haktarah - burning the kometz, and usually the levonah as well, on the altar, corresponding to the sprinkling of the blood.
These are the four essential services of a minchah, and if the kohen has an improper intention while performing them, it can disqualify the entire offering.
A change of offering and a change of owner:
The first subject of our Mishnah is shelo lishmah, meaning that the kohen has in mind the wrong type of minchah. This is called a change of offering - in his mind he switched one type for another. If he brings, for example, a marcheshes offering and intends it to be a machavas offering, a different type of minchah, that is shelo lishmah and can create problems. The Mishnah does not mention it, but a change of owner - having the wrong person in mind - is exactly the same problem: if he brings Reuven's minchah and thinks it is Shimon's.
How do we know what he had in mind?
Most authorities, among them the Rambam, understand that this is a kind of honesty policy, and whatever runs through his mind he must somehow disclose. Rashi understands, and so do Tosafos in several places, that we are not dealing with thought alone but with a verbal declaration: he says, "I am now doing a machavas," when it is really a marcheshes, or "I am doing Shimon's," when it is really Reuven's. It is the spoken statement that creates the problem before us.
The law of menachos whose kemitzah was done shelo lishman:
The Mishnah establishes that if the kohen performed the kemitzah of the minchah shelo lishmah, having in mind the wrong type of offering or the wrong person, this does not necessarily disqualify the offering. It remains valid: the minchah is offered, the kometz is burned, and the remainder of the minchah is eaten by the kohen as under ordinary circumstances. However, the person who obligated himself to bring that minchah will have to bring another one, since he receives no credit for this one.
In other words, if he made a vow and said, "I take upon myself a marcheshes," he will have to bring a new minchah. The same is true if an obligation falls upon him: suppose he ate kodashim in a state of tumah and is liable for a korban oleh v'yoreid, and he cannot afford a regular chatas or even birds, and therefore brings a minchas choteh, which is a minchah of fine flour. If at the time of the kemitzah the kohen has in mind, instead of a minchas choteh, that he is doing a minchas kena'os or the like, he causes the offering to become disqualified.
Although the Mishnah focuses on the kemitzah, the removal of the kometz, the same law applies to each of the four services, as the Mishnah will state further on: the kemitzah, the placing in the vessel, the carrying to the altar, and the burning on the altar. If he intends the wrong type of offering, or the wrong person, the very same problem arises - the offering remains valid, but the owner has not fulfilled his obligation with it.
The words of the Mishnah:
"Kol hamenachos shenikmetzu shelo lishman" - all the types of menachos that we detailed in the introduction, in which the kohen performed the kemitzah while having the wrong offering in mind.
"Kesheiros" - the offering remains valid.
"Ela shelo alu labe'alim mishum chovah" - they do not fulfill the obligation of the one bringing the offering, and if he made a formal vow he must bring a new minchah.
"Chutz mimichas choteh uminchas kena'os" - these two are the exceptions to the rule.
Minchas chotei and minchas kena'os:
Minchas chotei - the offering of a person who transgressed one of the three categories of errors listed in Vayikra 5, whose offering is a korban oleh v'yored (a sliding-scale offering). When he cannot afford an animal or birds, he brings a meal offering of fine flour.
Minchas kena'os - this is the meal offering of the sotah, the offering of the woman under suspicion. The husband issued a kinui, from the word kena'os (jealousy), meaning that he formally warned his wife not to seclude herself with a particular man, and she did so anyway. From that point she is forbidden to him until the matter is clarified through the drinking of the bitter waters. As part of that process a meal offering is brought as well, and that is the minchas kena'os.
With these two meal offerings, if the kohen performed the kemitzah shelo lishmah, and likewise with the three other services, the offering is not valid at all. One must start over: that meal offering is burned, but not on the altar, and the process begins again from the beginning.
The basis for this is its connection to the sin offering. We will learn that a sin offering must be performed lishmah, and if it was not performed lishmah it is invalid even after the fact. The minchas chotei is connected to the sin offering by a gezeirah shavah, "cheit" "cheit", and the minchas kena'os also has a gezeirah shavah, "avon" "avon", which connects it there as well. For this reason, these meal offerings are invalidated by an intention of shelo lishman even after the fact.
The Mishnah continues: "minchas chotei u'minchas kena'os shekematzan shelo lishman, nasan bichli, v'hileich, v'hiktir shelo lishman" - with these offerings of sinners, if one of the four services was performed with an invalid intention, whether for the wrong offering or for the wrong person, the offering is entirely invalid:
"shekematzan" - the kemitzah was performed shelo lishman.
"nasan bichli" - the kemitzah was performed lishmah for the correct offering, but the placing of the kometz into the sanctified service vessel was done for the wrong offering or for the wrong person.
"v'hileich" - the third stage, carrying it to the altar, was done for the wrong offering or for the wrong person.
"v'hiktir" - placing it on the altar to be burned was done shelo lishman or for the wrong person.
The same law applies both to "lishman v'shelo lishman" and to "shelo lishman v'lishman" - where the kohen has two intentions, one for the correct offering and one for the wrong offering. In any such combination, whether a change in the type of offering or a change in the owner, these meal offerings are entirely invalid.
What is a kemitzah that is "lishmah v'shelo lishmah"? This is "for the sake of a minchas chotei and for the sake of a minchas nedavah": the kohen intends, during the kemitzah, or the placing in the vessel, or the carrying, or the burning, both for a minchas chotei and for a minchas nedavah at one and the same time. This does not help, since the minchas nedavah portion of his intention was incorrect.
And what is "shelo lishmah v'lishmah", where he first intends for the wrong offering and then switches to the correct offering? This is "for the sake of a minchas nedavah and for the sake of a minchas chotei": he first has in mind the wrong offering, a minchas nedavah, which is a voluntary offering, and then he corrects himself and says that it is for the correct offering, the minchas chotei. This too does not help: from the moment he had an incorrect intention in his mind, the offering is completely invalid.
In summary: in this section we examined the four blood services of animal offerings and the four parallel services of a meal offering - kemitzah, placing in a vessel, carrying and burning - and how the kemitzah is performed with the three middle fingers. We learned that an intention of a change of offering or a change of owner during one of the four services does not invalidate the meal offering; rather, the owners do not fulfill their obligation with it and must bring another meal offering. The exceptions to this rule are the minchas chotei and the minchas kena'os, which are derived by a gezeirah shavah from the sin offering, where an intention of shelo lishman invalidates the offering entirely - and even a combination of a correct intention and an incorrect one, in any order, invalidates them.