Continuing with the laws of eating Terumah improperly, we now turn to the halachos that concern the daughter of a kohen. A woman whose father is a kohen may marry whomever she wishes, including someone who is not a kohen, and this raises questions in the laws of Terumah. Those permitted to eat Terumah are the kohen and all the members of his household, including his wife and his daughter.
Women may also have a connection to the kehunah in their own right. The prohibition against eating Terumah applies to a stranger, male or female, meaning one who is a stranger to the kehunah, and the daughter of a kohen is not a stranger to the kehunah at all: she is a member of a kohen's household from the day she was born.
Here, however, a complication arises: the daughter of a kohen, who has eaten Terumah her entire life in her father's home, may marry someone who is not a kohen. From the moment she becomes part of a new household, the household of a non-kohen, she is disqualified from eating Terumah. We therefore need to examine the various scenarios of her marriage, including cases in which she is permanently forbidden to eat Terumah.
The daughter of a kohen who marries a Yisrael:
Under ordinary circumstances, the daughter of a kohen eats Terumah until she marries. Once she marries someone who is not a kohen, she may no longer eat Terumah, but she does not become a stranger, because the way back remains open to her:
If her husband died and she has no living children from him - she returns to being part of her father's household and eats Terumah.
If she has living children from her non-kohen husband - she has established a new household of her own, one that continues to exist even after her husband's death, and she remains forbidden to eat Terumah.
If all of those children died in her lifetime - she is once again permitted to eat Terumah as a continuation of her father's household, the household of a kohen.
This is what emerges from the first page: once she is the daughter of a kohen, on some level she is always the daughter of a kohen, since the possibility of returning is always available to her. Matters become more complicated, however, when the daughter of a kohen marries someone who is forbidden to her by Torah law.
The marriages that disqualify her:
Zonah - a woman who marries someone whom the Torah has forbidden to her, such as a mamzer, whom no woman may marry, or a Mitzri, Edomi, Moavi or Nasin, whom she is forbidden to marry either by Torah law or by rabbinic law. Such a woman becomes what the Torah calls a 'zonah', a technical, professional term.
Chalalah - a woman who marries, or even merely has relations with, someone forbidden to her because of the rules that restrict the marriages of the kehunah: a divorcee who marries a kohen, a widow who marries a Kohen Gadol, or a woman who marries a chalal. Such a woman becomes a chalalah, meaning one who has been emptied of her status of kehunah.
A chalal is the offspring of one of these unions between a kohen and a woman whom the kohen may not marry, since the laws restricting kohanim apply to those marriages. In other words, a kohen who married a divorcee or a zonah - their male child is a chalal, and the daughter of a kohen who marries a chalal becomes a chalalah and is no longer fit to eat Terumah.
Both the zonah and the chalalah are permanently disqualified from ever returning to eat Terumah. It turns out that a woman has the ability to divorce herself from the kehunah, by marrying in a way that no longer allows her to return to her father's household or to marry another kohen. In our Mishnah the Tannaim disagree about whether such a woman is considered a stranger to the kehunah from now on and forever, since had she not become a zonah or a chalalah she would have been able to return, whereas now she cannot. That is the background, and from here we will study the Mishnah.
The view of Rabbi Meir:
The first opinion in the Mishnah is that of Rabbi Meir: "Bas kohen shenisses le'Yisrael ve'achar kach achlah Terumah - meshalemes es hakeren ve'einah meshalemes es hachomesh" - a kohen's daughter who married a Yisrael and then ate Terumah pays the principal but does not pay the fifth. An ordinary kohen's daughter, who ate Terumah up until her marriage and then married a Yisrael, meaning someone who is not a kohen, is disqualified from eating Terumah, but she is not a stranger to the priesthood, since she may yet be divorced and marry a kohen, or return to her father's house if she has no children from this husband.
Therefore, if she ate Terumah after she married, she has indeed acted improperly, since she is no longer part of a kohen's household, and she must pay. But since she is not included in the "stranger" spoken of in the verse, she is exempt from the fifth. What this means is that her payment is not a Terumah payment at all but a payment for theft: Terumah belongs to the kohanim, and when she ate it she stole from the kohen, so like any thief she pays the value of what she ate. There is no room here for paying with chullin that becomes Terumah, and if she did so the payment does not become Terumah, and there is no obligation of a fifth, exactly as the Mishnah states, but only monetary compensation.
Her death penalty is by burning:
An entirely separate matter is the law of the death penalty. A woman who commits adultery is liable to death, provided that there were valid witnesses who warned her properly that if she does this act she will be liable to death, who explained to her what is liable to happen, and she answered that this will not stop her. However, there are two different death penalties that distinguish between a kohen's daughter and a woman who is not a kohen's daughter: a kohen's daughter is put to death by burning, while any other woman is put to death by strangulation (this is not the place to spell out their details).
The question, then, concerns a kohen's daughter who married a Yisrael and became part of his household, and afterwards committed adultery: which death penalty is she given, that of a kohen's daughter or that of a woman who is not a kohen's daughter? To this Rabbi Meir says: "u'misasah bisrefah" - her death is by burning. Even though she married into a family that is not a family of kohanim, she remains a kohen's daughter forever, and therefore she receives the death penalty of a kohen's daughter.
These two halachos are consistent with one another: she is not a stranger with regard to the fifth of Terumah, and correspondingly she is judged with burning and not with strangulation. Nevertheless, they are derived from two different verses and are not necessarily dependent on one another, even though they go together.
She married one of the disqualifying men:
The Mishnah continues: "Nisses le'echad mikol hapesulim - meshalemes keren vachomesh u'misasah b'chenek" - if she married one of all those who disqualify her, she pays principal and fifth, and her death is by strangulation. If the kohen's daughter married someone who disqualifies her, whether she became a zonah by marrying a mamzer, a nasin, an Egyptian, an Edomite or a Moabite, or whether she became a chalalah by marrying a chalal, or by being a divorcee who married a kohen or a widow who married a Kohen Gadol - everything changes.
Since she has disqualified herself in a way that she can never again return to her father's house and eat Terumah, and can never again marry a kohen, she becomes a stranger in Rabbi Meir's opinion, and her priestly status is taken from her forever. Therefore, if she ate Terumah while she was a chalalah or a zonah, she pays like any stranger: principal and fifth, and her payment is made with pure chullin that becomes Terumah, to which she adds a fifth like anyone else.
The same applies to the death penalty: if, after she became a zonah or a chalalah, she committed adultery, she is judged, under the required conditions, like any woman who is not a kohen's daughter, and her death is by strangulation. In Rabbi Meir's opinion she has lost her status as a kohen's daughter completely. Here too the two laws are consistent with one another, even though they are derived from different verses.
The view of the Sages:
The Sages disagree with Rabbi Meir, and the halachah follows them. In their words: "Zu vazu meshalemes es hakeren ve'einah meshalemes es hachomesh" - in both this case and that case she pays the principal and does not pay the fifth. It makes no difference whether the kohen's daughter married a Yisrael or became a zonah or a chalalah. In every case she is not a stranger, because of her origin - she comes from a kohen. And even though, once she has become a zonah or a chalalah, she will not necessarily be able to marry a kohen again or return to her father's house and eat Terumah, she is never a complete stranger to the priesthood.
Therefore, if she ate Terumah unintentionally, she is indeed obligated to make restitution, but she pays only as one who took something that was not hers, a monetary repayment, and she is not subject to the law of principal and a fifth that applies to a non-kohen man or woman, since she is not included in that category.
The same applies regarding the death penalty: "u'misasan bisrefah" - and their death is by burning. This law too is derived from a different verse, but it is consistent with the previous one: according to the Sages, every daughter of a kohen, whether she married an ordinary Jew or one of those who disqualify her, and in whatever manner she sinned, retains her status as the daughter of a kohen from beginning to end by force of that same verse, and therefore she is judged with burning in every case.
In summary: Rabbi Meir and the Sages disagree about the status of the daughter of a kohen who married someone who is not a kohen. According to Rabbi Meir, a kohen's daughter who married an ordinary Jew is not considered a non-kohen - she pays the principal alone and her death is by burning; but once she married one of those who disqualify her and became a zonah or a chalalah, she becomes a full-fledged non-kohen - she pays principal and a fifth and her death is by strangulation. The Sages hold that in all these cases she is not considered a non-kohen, because she comes from a kohen: she pays the principal alone and her death is by burning, and the halachah follows their opinion.