We now begin the fourth chapter of Maseches Temurah, which deals with the chataos hameisos - sin offerings that are left to die. This is a challenging chapter, and do not be discouraged if it does not sink in perfectly the first time around; this is arguably the most complex material to be found anywhere in the Mishnah.
There is a halachah l'Moshe miSinai - a tradition handed down to Moshe Rabbeinu at Har Sinai, with no source in the verses at all, neither an explicit verse nor even a derashah or a hint - that in five cases a sin offering is left to die. "Left to die" means that it is not offered, and it is not even put out to graze until it develops a blemish; rather, it is brought into a room and the door is shut on it, with no food and no drink, until it dies.
The ordinary rule for a sin offering that was left over and never used is different. For example: a person designated two hundred dollars to buy a sin offering, and in the end spent only a hundred and fifty, since that is the price of a sin offering - a female goat in its first year. The leftover funds are classified as mosar chatas, and the rule is that mosar chatas goes toward a voluntary offering.
What this means is: the money left over from the purchase, which has the status of mosar chatas, goes to the Beis HaMikdash. In the Beis HaMikdash there were public collection boxes, something like charity boxes, called shofaros because of their shofar-like shape, and the money went into the shofar designated for buying kayitz hamizbeach - literally, dessert for the altar. This refers to burnt offerings purchased with public funds when the altar was standing idle, since an idle altar is considered something of a disgrace, and so public offerings, burnt offerings, were brought on it to keep it burning. That is the ordinary use of mosar chatas. But the five sin offerings before us, or the money set aside for them, do not go toward a voluntary offering; they are destroyed or left to die, and it is forbidden to derive any benefit from them.
A mnemonic for the five cases - "Vesimna":
It should be said at the outset that the mnemonic oversimplifies matters: the five cases are not identical to one another, and no single word summarizes any one of them, or all of them, with real precision. The mnemonic is the word "Vesimna", from the verse "And Timna was a concubine," and its five letters - vav, tav, mem, nun, ayin - are the initials of the five cases.
Vav - vlad chatas, the offspring of a sin offering: A vlad is an offspring. This is the basic scenario for our entire chapter: a person became obligated in a sin offering, meaning that he unintentionally transgressed a sin whose intentional violation carries kareis - for instance, he forgot that it was Shabbos and lit a fire. Let us call him Reuven. Reuven set aside a ewe and said: this is the sin offering I am bringing for my desecration of Shabbos. If, before he managed to bring it, the ewe gave birth, we now have an additional animal that draws its sanctity and status from its mother, as we learned in the previous chapter, and its status is that of a derivative sin offering. The mother is brought as the offering, and the offspring - what is left over - is left to die.
Tav - temuras chatas, the substitute of a sin offering: What temurah is we already know, and it is the subject of our tractate. The previous chapter dealt with the substitutes of the various kinds of offerings - the peace offering and the burnt offering, whose substitutes are offered just as the originals are, as against cases such as the guilt offering, whose substitute has a different law from the original - and our chapter completes that topic. The status of the substitute of a sin offering differs from that of the sin offering itself: the substitute of a sin offering is left to die. How so? Reuven had a lamb, and he decided he would rather bring Dolly in its place, and he declared that Dolly is in its stead, its exchange and its substitute. The lamb must be offered as the sin offering, while Dolly is left to die.
Mem - meisu ba'aleha, its owner died: A sin offering whose owner has died. Reuven set aside the lamb and then died. Once Reuven has died he no longer needs atonement, since his death is his atonement, and in any case atonement is not granted through an offering after death, so there is no way at all to bring the lamb. The heirs, Reuven's descendants who inherit the estate including the lamb, can do nothing with it, and they must leave it to die.
Nun - niskapru ba'aleha, its owner already received atonement: A sin offering whose owner has already received atonement from another source. This is the main subject of the chapter, and here things really do get complicated. Simply put: Reuven set aside Lamb Chop, and Lamb Chop got lost. He still wants atonement, so he consecrates Dolly as his sin offering in her place, goes up to Yerushalayim and offers her, and his atonement is complete. He returns home and finds Lamb Chop in the bushes. Lamb Chop is a case of niskapru ba'aleha - Reuven has already received his atonement, there is nothing further to be done with her, and she is left to die. We will expand on this throughout the chapter.
Ayin - avrah shenasah, its year has passed: A sin offering that has passed its first birthday. The sin offerings of a private individual are all female goats or ewes in their first year, and once they have entered their second year they are no longer fit to serve as a sin offering.
Two deficiencies - the approach of the Bartenura:
We will explain the mishnah and the entire chapter according to the approach of the Bartenura, who follows Rashi. In his view, the last two cases - avrah shenasah and also niskapru ba'aleha - apply only if the animal was also lost. Take the case of avrah shenasah: if Reuven consecrated Lamb Chop and her birthday came around, that alone is not enough for her to be left to die. True, she is no longer fit to be offered, but she can be left until she develops a blemish, then sold, with a new sin offering bought with the proceeds. The cases in which the animal is left to die are those that have two deficiencies: first, that its year has passed, and second, that it was lost. And it makes no difference which came first - whether it was lost and while it was lost its birthday came, or its birthday came and afterward it was lost - as long as both deficiencies are present. Niskapru ba'aleha, however, is more complicated, and we will return to it shortly. These, then, are the five sin offerings that are left to die.
Two disputes that run through the chapter:
Around the case of niskapru ba'aleha revolve two disputes that lie in the background of every single mishnah in the chapter, and so we will set them out here in advance.
The first dispute - is being lost required:
If the animal was lost, is it considered 'nitkapru be'aleha' when it was found before the atonement took place? Let us illustrate with a simple case: an anxious man, afraid that he might lose his money, desecrated Shabbos unintentionally and wants to guarantee that he will be able to bring his korban. He set aside two animals, both consecrated from the outset, and said: "One of them is my insurance policy, and if one gets lost or stolen or blemished - it makes no difference, since I have a second korban as backup, and that is the one I will bring as my chatas." Once one of the animals has been brought as the chatas, does the second one receive the status of 'nitkapru be'aleha' and get left to die?
Rabbi Yehudah, and the halachah follows him: if there was no issue here of an animal that was lost and replaced, there is nothing to discuss, and this is not 'nitkapru be'aleha'. This is a halachah l'Moshe miSinai, and there are no verses that support it; this is simply the tradition. Therefore, in the backup scenario, the insurance policy, the other animal that is not offered is not left to die; rather it is considered mosar chatas, and it is left to graze until it develops a blemish, and its value goes to the donation fund of the Beis HaMikdash for the kayitz hamizbe'ach.
Rabbi Shimon: the loss is not part of the equation at all and is entirely irrelevant. If two animals were consecrated as a chatas for the same sin and he received atonement through one of them, the second one, or the rest of them, are left to die, and that is all.
These two names are not mentioned anywhere in our chapter, and nonetheless they lurk in the background. In the first three of the four mishnayos in the chapter we assume that the halachah follows Rabbi Yehudah, and that is the framework in which we operate - that a loss is required. The fourth mishnah, however, switches over into the world of Rabbi Shimon, without mentioning Rabbi Yehudah or the other approach, and without mentioning Rabbi Shimon or Rabbi Yehudah by name, and the halachah does not follow that fourth mishnah at all.
The second dispute - when the animal was found:
This dispute is within Rabbi Yehudah's position. In his view, the owner's atonement from another source leaves the second animal to die only if the first animal was lost. But when does the animal have to be found? On this the Chachamim and Rebbi disagree:
According to the Chachamim: if the first animal was found before he received atonement, it does not have the status of 'nitkapru be'aleha'. It too, therefore, is mosar chatas, and it is left until it develops a blemish, and its value goes to the donation fund. It becomes 'nitkapru be'aleha' only if it was found after the offering and the atonement from the other source.
According to Rebbi: once animal A was lost and was replaced by animal B, then after he received atonement the other animal that was not offered has the status of 'nitkapru be'aleha', and it is left to die even in that case.
The Rema is in doubt as to whom the halachah follows, and so too among the Rishonim, and therefore we will not discuss the final ruling here. There is a further difficulty in reading these mishnayos: some of them operate within the framework of the Chachamim's view, while the third mishnah, which is a stam mishnah, operates within the framework of Rebbi's view. The anonymous mishnayos are thus working from different assumptions, and that is what makes the chapter hard to follow. That is the background; from here we will look at the mishnah itself.
The Mishnah:
"Velad chatas u'temuras chatas v'chatas shemeisu ba'aleha yamusu" - the first three of the five: the vav, the tav and the mem, the offspring, the substitute, and the one whose owners died. These are simple and clear, and in all of them the ruling is 'yamusu', that the animal is left to die. Let us go through them again:
The offspring: Reuven consecrates Lamb Chop, and before he manages to bring her, Lamb Chop becomes pregnant and gives birth to a kid. That kid is a velad, and it is not offered; rather it is left to die. And what if Lamb Chop was already pregnant at the time of the consecration and gave birth afterwards? Here we learned that the kid does not receive derivative sanctity from the mother; rather Reuven consecrated, as it were, two animals, the mother and the kid already in her womb, and when the kid is born the two are like two chataos of equal status. This is similar to the backup situation, and therefore one animal is offered, let us say the mother, and the second animal, the offspring, is mosar chatas and its value goes to the donation fund - certainly according to the Chachamim.
Temuras chatas: this one is straightforward. There is animal A, Lamb Chop, and he takes animal B, Dolly, and says that Dolly is its substitute. He has transgressed and receives lashes, and in any case animal B, Dolly, is left until it dies.
Whose owners died: Reuven consecrates his lamb, and before he manages to offer it Reuven dies, and therefore his heirs leave the consecrated lamb to die. This is in contrast to other individual korbanos, such as an olah, a voluntary olah, or shelamim, which the heirs are able to offer.
"She'avrah shenasah v'she'avdah":
The fourth case is one whose year has passed, meaning that its birthday arrived. We will explain it according to the approach of the Bartenura, who in fact had a slightly different version of the text before him. It is admittedly hard to see this in the words and to fit them to one another, but in any case this is how he learns it: "she'avrah shenasah" - the animal had a birthday, "v'she'avdah" - and it was also lost. This is the 'tartei l'rei'usa', two strikes against it, and therefore when it is found - since it was lost, and since it can no longer be brought now that it is past a year old - the animal is left until it dies. And this is the law regardless of anything else: even if it was found before that person received his atonement, it makes no difference, and the animal is left until it dies.
The other case, which is roughly on the same level, is "v'nimtzeis ba'alas mum" - that it was found to have a permanent blemish. As we said in the introduction, the siman of five does not mention this case. Here too, just as with an animal that passed its year, we need 'trei l'ri'usa', two things that went wrong with it: first that it was lost, and second that it became blemished. And when it is found, even if the owner has not yet received atonement, that makes no difference and the animal is left to die. So the words "and that was lost" should be read as going in both directions - both to the animal that passed its year and to the one found to be blemished. The Vilna Gaon explains that the reason for this order is that with an animal that passed its year it makes no difference which happened first: it can have its birthday and then get lost, or get lost and then have its birthday, and in both cases it is left to die; whereas with an animal found to be blemished, it has to get lost first and only afterwards be discovered to be blemished, but if it became blemished first and only then got lost, that is not the case where it is left to die.
The owner received atonement and "ein oseh temurah":
Here the Mishnah becomes even harder to read the way the Bartenura reads it, but in any event this is the case where the owner received atonement. We have two animals in front of us: Dolly, the second animal, and Lamb Chop, the first animal. If Dolly was offered, then Lamb Chop, which was designated as a chatas, can no longer be brought, and Lamb Chop is left to die. And here we are operating in the world of the Chachamim, meaning that it is left to die only if the first animal was found after atonement was achieved. The consequence of this is "ein oseh temurah": Lamb Chop, which is left to die because its owner received atonement through the other animal, is like a suspended chatas - it retains a residue of chatas status and has to be left to die, but it is not a full chatas and it does not generate temurah. In other words: Reuven set aside Lamb Chop, Lamb Chop got lost, he set aside Dolly and offered it, and afterwards he found Lamb Chop - and Lamb Chop is left to die. If he now brings Bessie and says "Bessie should be the temurah of Lamb Chop," nothing happens, because Lamb Chop is no longer a full chatas that can be brought, it does not create temurah, and nothing takes effect on Bessie.
"V'lo nehenin v'lo mo'alin":
This expression appears many times in Shas, and it functions almost like a code phrase. "V'lo mo'alin" means that the animal no longer carries the full sanctity of a korban. The rule is that with anything that is hekdesh, whether kedushas damim or kedushas haguf, one who derives monetary benefit from it transgresses the prohibition of me'ilah - unlawful use of consecrated property - and if he did so unintentionally he must replace it, add a fifth as a penalty, and bring an asham me'ilos, a special type of korban. But once the owner received atonement through Dolly, Lamb Chop left the category of usable hekdesh, and if he derives benefit from it - shears its wool to make a sweater, milks it or eats it - he does not transgress me'ilah, since it is no longer a full chatas. Nevertheless, "v'lo nehenin" - he is forbidden to derive benefit from it on a rabbinic level, but if he did derive benefit it is not a Torah prohibition of me'ilah, since it already left the category of usable hekdesh once atonement was achieved elsewhere.
And what is the law as long as the owner has not yet received atonement? If the animal was lost and came back, and he no longer wants to use it but prefers to wait and bring a different animal - "tir'eh tista'ev", he lets it graze until it develops a blemish, "v'timacher v'yavi b'dameha acheres" - and once it develops a blemish it is sold, and with the proceeds he buys another chatas, brings it, and gains atonement through it. And since no atonement was achieved, and he did not designate the second animal before he found the first, the first animal is not left to die even though it was lost and eventually developed a blemish; rather, as we said, its proceeds go to the kayitz hamizbe'ach as a surplus chatas.
And in the meantime, as long as he is waiting for it to develop a blemish, "v'oseh temurah u'mo'alin bah". The animal is still like a chatas waiting to be offered; true, he chose not to use it once it was lost and there is a point against it, but since he did not receive atonement elsewhere it is not left to die, and it is a living, functioning korban. Therefore temurah takes effect on it: if he now says that Dolly should be the temurah of Lamb Chop, Dolly becomes a temurah. And likewise me'ilah applies to it: as long as he is waiting for it to develop a blemish, since it is a chatas, one who derives monetary benefit from it transgresses the prohibition of me'ilah, and he must replace it, pay for it with the added fifth, and bring an asham me'ilos.
It must be admitted that it is quite difficult to see all of this precisely in the wording of the Mishnah, and even among the Rishonim there are different approaches to how to read these words, and we are following the approach of the Bartenura. We will stop here, since we still have a great deal to discuss on this continuing topic in the coming mishnayos.