Temurah Chapter 6, Mishnah 1. We begin here a new chapter, whose subject is the various categories of animals that are disqualified from being brought as an offering - not because of a blemish visible on their body from the outside, but because of something that happened to them in the past, which is what causes them to be forbidden now. Since their status is not outwardly recognizable, they are liable to become mixed in with other animals, and this is the background to the laws of mixtures in our chapter.
Introduction: mixtures and nullification in a majority:
Before we turn to the main body of the chapter - the listing of these animals, the defect in each of them and the technical details of their disqualification - let us preface one simple point: these animals are forbidden even when they have become mixed in with other animals.
The ordinary rule is that when a mixture is formed of separate items that do not join together and cannot be told apart from one another, they all take on a single status according to the status of the mixture as a whole. For example: three chicken wings, one of them from a bird that is a neveilah and two from animals that were properly slaughtered, and now they all look like chicken wings and there is no way to distinguish between them. From the Torah the rule is "acharei rabim l'hatos" - we follow the majority, and the minority components lose their identity before the majority. Therefore the three wings take on the status of the permitted majority, and all of them may be eaten.
Rabbinically, however, there are certain things to which the Sages attributed added importance - items that are not sold by count, that are too significant to lose their identity among the other components of the mixture. There are several types in this category (some six in number), and one of them is a whole animal - a 'beriah', which has a status of its own and is not nullified. Accordingly, while chicken wings are nullified among other chicken wings, whole birds are not nullified.
Based on this, if an animal was worshipped as idolatry - an act that leaves no outward trace on it whatsoever - and it entered the herd, and now we have ten cows before us, nine ordinary ones and one that was worshipped, all ten become forbidden to be offered, even though most of them are permitted. Since the one is not nullified rabbinically, and any one of them might be the forbidden animal, all of them are forbidden for use.
This is the first point in our Mishnah: "Kol ha'asurin al gabei hamizbe'ach" - every animal that may not be brought up on the altar as an offering - "osrin b'chol shehen" - forbids the mixture in any proportion whatsoever. Even if one forbidden cow became mixed in with a thousand permitted cows, all one thousand and one can no longer be brought as an offering.
The list of disqualified animals:
What is the list of animals that cannot be identified from the outside, yet something happened to them in the past that forbids them now? Most of them are listed in pairs:
Harove'a v'hanirva: an animal that was involved in an act of bestiality - in the case of the 'rove'a' the animal is the male, and in the case of the 'nirva' the person is the male. Such animals may never serve as an offering.
Hamuktzeh v'hane'evad: 'muktzeh' is an animal that was designated to serve as an offering for idolatry. A verbal designation alone is not sufficient: unlike ordinary offerings, where saying "this is an olah" designates the animal permanently, for idolatry a physical act is required, such as shearing its hair in order to prepare it for offering. Once such an act has been performed on it, it is forbidden forever from being offered to Hashem. 'Ne'evad' is an animal that was worshipped, that people bowed down to or performed an equivalent act toward, and from that moment it is forbidden to serve as an offering forever.
Ha'esnan v'hamechir: this pair appears together in a single verse. 'Esnan' is the payment given to a harlot, and 'mechir' is the consideration given for the purchase of a dog or in exchange for one. We will deal with them further on in the Mishnah.
Hakilayim: the offspring of a mixture of species - one a goat and the other a sheep, whether the mother is a goat and the father a sheep or the reverse, and they produced a young. If it cannot be distinguished from the other animals and it became mixed in with them, all the animals in the mixture are forbidden to be offered, since a crossbreed is not brought as an offering. And all of this is based on verses.
Hatreifah: an animal that sustained a fatal injury, meaning that it will die within the coming twelve months, such as a puncture in the lungs.
The case of the Mishnah here cannot be an animal that actually has a punctured lung, since from the outside that is not recognizable at all; nor can it be an animal with an external blemish, such as one that lost a leg that was severed above the knee, for then it would be clearly recognizable as a three-legged cow among all the rest. Therefore the case is an animal that was attacked by a lion or a wolf and was left with scars on its back from the attack, and it became mixed in with other animals that also have scars on their backs - except that their scars came from thorns, which do not render them treifah. Now there is no way to know which is which: out of three animals, one is treifah because of the lion and two are not, and therefore none of them may be brought as an offering.
Hayotzei dofen: an animal that was taken, literally, from the side, that is, born by Caesarean section, which did not emerge in the normal way but rather the animal's belly was opened and it was removed from there. It too, on the basis of verses, is disqualified from being brought as an offering.
"Eizehu muktzeh?":
From here on the Mishnah goes back over these disqualifications and discusses them at length. First: "Eizehu muktzeh?" - "Hamuktzeh la'avodah zarah". This refers to an animal that was designated specifically for the purpose of being offered to idolatry and for nothing else, and this is not like the muktzeh of Shabbos, which was set aside for something else. And as stated, an act must be performed on its body.
"Hu asur" - from that moment on, the animal is forever forbidden to be brought as an offering to Hashem. "U'mah she'alav mutar" - whatever is on it, such as a crown placed on its head as part of the preparations before the offering, is not forbidden, since it was not offered and did not serve in the worship. And the intent is not merely that it is permitted for benefit, but that it is permitted even to be brought up onto the Altar: if the Altar were to need a new gold plating, the gold of that crown could be used, since the crown was never offered to idolatry but merely sat on the head of an animal that had been designated for that purpose.
"Eizehu ne'evad?":
"Kol she'ovdin oso" - an animal that was itself worshipped: people bowed to it, burned incense to it, brought offerings to it and the like. From now on it is forever forbidden to be offered to Hashem, since it itself has become a form of idolatry.
"Hu u'mah she'alav asur" - in this case both the animal itself and whatever was on it are certainly forbidden to be offered to Hashem. If the cow was wearing a crown and people bowed to it, the cow and the crown are forbidden alike, since the bowing was not to the cow alone but also to what was on it, to the crown that was bowed to.
"Zeh vazeh mutarin ba'achilah" - the animals in both cases are permitted to be eaten. Even though people bowed to the cow, its owner may eat it, because it does not become forbidden for benefit. The rule is that things which the Holy One created by their very nature, such as a mountain or a river, are not rendered forbidden to everyone by being worshipped; and living creatures too are included among the things that the Holy One created, as it were, and therefore they do not become forbidden for benefit. If a person bowed to a cow, the cow becomes forbidden to be offered to Hashem, but it may be slaughtered and eaten. And this is the law both for what was designated for the Altar and for what was bowed to.
But if people bowed to a cow with a crown on its head, the crown is the work of human hands and not the work of the Holy One, and therefore it is not only forbidden for the Altar but forbidden for benefit as well. The crown that was worshipped together with the animal may not be put to any use; rather it is ground up and cast into the Dead Sea.
In summary: in this Mishnah we learned that all those animals forbidden upon the Altar prohibit a mixture in any amount whatsoever, because a living creature is a 'beriah' that is not nullified in a majority. We listed the disqualified animals: an animal that committed relations with a person and one with which a person committed relations, one set aside for idolatry and one that was worshipped, an animal given as the hire of a harlot or as the price of a dog, a crossbred animal, a tereifah, and an animal born by caesarean section. We further examined the distinction between the animal set aside for idolatry, which is forbidden while what is on it is permitted, and the animal that was worshipped, where both it and what is on it are forbidden, and the point that the animals themselves are permitted to be eaten because they do not become forbidden for benefit, while the crown that was worshipped, being the work of human hands, is completely forbidden for benefit.