The Eri B. Sit edition and audio series of the Talmud Bavli, which learns all of its pages, should be in honor of Chaim ben Simcha, for a complete recovery, and for the sponsor and his family, that they should have success, health, and happiness. Honor and glory from now and forever. Amen and amen.
Yosef ben Sabut—may the spirit of Hashem comfort him. Amen.
We begin today’s discussion on the second side of the page, five lines from the bottom, with the first word, “Come and hear.” We are discussing a statement in the Mishnah and asking what that statement means. The Mishnah said that once there is permission for the priests to eat the sacrifice, the law of misuse of consecrated property is removed. The question was: What is meant by “permission for the priests”? One opinion we encountered said that it means permission for the sprinkling of the blood. In other words, once the receiving of the blood was performed properly, and the blood was therefore permitted to be sprinkled, as long as there was even one moment when the sprinkling was possible, that is enough. Even if the sacrifice subsequently became disqualified for some reason, it already had permission for the priests—in other words, permission for the sprinkling—and the law of misuse is removed.
There is, of course, another interpretation. Perhaps the intention is that the sprinkling itself had to be valid and had to permit the priests to eat the sacrifice. Only then would we say that the sprinkling removes the law of misuse. However, we saw an opinion on yesterday’s page that says no: permission for the sprinkling means that as long as the receiving of the blood was performed properly, thereby giving the blood permission to be sprinkled, that alone is enough to remove the law of misuse.
The Gemara now brings a proof to that opinion—that permission for sprinkling is enough to remove the law of misuse. “Come and hear: With regard to an invalid intention in the service of a sacrifice, there is always misuse.” What does “always” mean? When there is such an invalid intention, there is never permission for the priests to eat, because the sacrifice has become invalid. Therefore, the law of misuse always remains. What does the word “always” come to include?
The Gemara answers that it includes a case in which the blood was not sprinkled. Although the statement says “always,” it refers both to a case in which the invalid intention was introduced during the slaughter and to a case in which it was introduced during the receiving of the blood, before the blood was sprinkled. The sacrifice is still subject to misuse.
We can infer from this that permission for sprinkling is sufficient. Why? The only reason the law of misuse remains is that there was an invalid intention. If there had been no invalid intention, all other factors being equal, and the receiving of the blood had been performed properly, there would have been no misuse. Therefore, it must be that permission for sprinkling is sufficient to remove the law of misuse. Since there was an invalid intention, there was never genuine permission for sprinkling; the sprinkling could not accomplish anything because the sacrifice had already become invalid. Therefore, the law of misuse remains. But in the same case without the invalid intention, once the blood was received properly, there would be permission for sprinkling and the law of misuse would be removed.
The Gemara rejects this proof. Perhaps the statement is referring to a case in which the blood was actually sprinkled. What, then, does “always” teach? It teaches the principle of Rav Gidel: with regard to the most sacred sacrifices, if the slaughter was performed properly but the blood was sprinkled with an invalid intention, the sprinkling does not remove the law of misuse. Once the blood was sprinkled with an invalid intention, there is no permission for the priests to eat, and therefore the law of misuse remains.
According to this explanation, the novelty of the teaching is that even after the sprinkling, the consecrated object remains subject to misuse because it has not received permission to be eaten. We have no proof from this teaching that permission for sprinkling alone is enough. On the contrary, perhaps the teaching is specifically discussing a case in which the blood was sprinkled and became invalid, and it is teaching that even in that case the law of misuse remains. This is the teaching of Rav Gidel.
Let us read this in the commentary. The phrase “not when the blood was sprinkled” means that the sprinkling has nothing to do with removing the invalid intention or with removing the law of misuse. The sprinkling itself was invalid. However, the implication is that if one performed the sprinkling properly, the law of misuse would be removed. Why? Because once the sacrifice advanced to the stage of sprinkling, the teaching is discussing sprinkling performed with an invalid intention, and it is teaching us the law of Rav Gidel: sprinkling with an invalid intention does not remove the law of misuse because there is no permission to eat.
The implication, however, is that if the sprinkling was valid, the law of misuse would be removed. This would return us to permission to eat. What, then, does “always” mean? The word sounds as though the law applies even before the stage of eating, but the Gemara is now explaining what “always” means. It teaches the novelty of Rav Gidel: even when the blood was sprinkled, the law of misuse remains because the sacrifice had become invalid. Therefore, we do not have the proof we originally sought.
The Gemara now attempts to bring a proof in the opposite direction. It will argue that permission to eat is the key. Permission to eat means that there must be a moment when the sacrifice is fit to be eaten by the priests. Once, even for a single moment, it was fit for the priests to eat, the law of misuse is removed. The Gemara now attempts to prove this.
“Come and hear: Rabbi Shimon says that there is leftover sacrificial meat with regard to which one is liable for misuse.” What is leftover sacrificial meat? It is meat from a sacrifice that was not eaten within the period in which it was supposed to be eaten and therefore remained until the following morning. For example, if a sacrifice may be eaten during the day and night, then it may be eaten on Monday, on Monday night, and until Tuesday morning. Once morning arrives, it is considered leftover and becomes invalid. If the permitted period is two days and one night, the same principle applies: it may be eaten on Monday and Tuesday, and until dawn following Tuesday night. After dawn, it is leftover.
We are discussing a case in which the meat is leftover. Even though it is leftover and may no longer be eaten, there is still a law of misuse. Since there is no permission to eat it, the law of misuse remains. The Gemara then presents a case in which there is no law of misuse: the meat remained overnight before the sprinkling. After the sprinkling, there is no misuse.
We must understand what the teaching means. It quotes only part of the statement: there is misuse before the sprinkling, but after the sprinkling there is no misuse. Obviously, we are speaking about a case in which there was time during the day to sprinkle the blood. The blood could have been sprinkled, but it was not. The meat remained overnight, and therefore became leftover. The teaching tells us that even though it was possible to sprinkle the blood, since the meat became leftover, the law of misuse remains.
The Gemara seeks to infer from this that permission to eat is the determining factor. The Mishnah says that once the priests have permission, the law of misuse is removed. Here, the sacrifice was fit for sprinkling, and yet the meat became leftover. Since the sprinkling was possible, perhaps it had permission to be eaten. But after the sprinkling, the teaching says that there is no misuse. This indicates that the point at which the law of misuse ends is the valid sprinkling, because that is when the sacrifice becomes permitted to eat.
In other words, what is the dividing line? Once the blood is sprinkled, the law of misuse is removed. Before the sprinkling, the law remains, even if there was permission for sprinkling. The Gemara is therefore attempting to prove that actual sprinkling is required and that mere permission for sprinkling is not enough.
However, the Gemara reinterprets the teaching. When it says “before the sprinkling” and “after the sprinkling,” perhaps it does not mean that the blood was actually sprinkled in the second case. Rather, “before the sprinkling” means before the time when it was possible to sprinkle, and “after the sprinkling” means after the time when it was possible to sprinkle. For example, the blood was received one second before sunset, when there was no longer enough time to sprinkle it. In that case, there was no permission for sprinkling. But if the blood was received earlier—say, two minutes before sunset—there was time to sprinkle it, and there was permission for sprinkling.
Thus, we originally understood “before the sprinkling” to mean that one had the opportunity to sprinkle and did not do so, and “after the sprinkling” to mean that one actually sprinkled the blood. The Gemara says that this is not necessarily the meaning. “Before the sprinkling” can mean before the time when sprinkling was possible, and “after the sprinkling” can mean after the time when sprinkling was possible. The issue is not necessarily whether the blood was physically sprinkled. The issue is whether there was an opportunity to perform the sprinkling.
The Gemara then asks: If the issue is whether there was time to perform the sprinkling, why does the teaching use the terms “before the sprinkling” and “after the sprinkling”? It should have said “before sunset” and “after sunset.” The real distinction, according to this interpretation, is that before sunset there was still time to sprinkle, whereas after sunset there was no longer time to sprinkle.
The Gemara answers that the wording is understandable. When the teaching says “before the sprinkling” and “after the sprinkling,” the ordinary meaning sounds like actual sprinkling, but it can be understood as referring to the potential for sprinkling. Therefore, we still do not have a proof that permission to eat is required. At most, we have a proof that permission for sprinkling matters.
The Gemara brings another proof. “Come and hear: With regard to the most sacred sacrifices, there is misuse.” This is similar to the teaching we just discussed, and it is also attributed to Rabbi Shimon. Sometimes an invalid intention occurs in a sacrifice and the law of misuse remains, while sometimes an invalid intention occurs and there is no law of misuse.
The teaching says that before the sprinkling there is misuse. What does “before the sprinkling” mean? Perhaps it means that there was time to sprinkle the blood. If one had wanted to sprinkle it, one could have done so, and yet the teaching says that misuse remains. The Gemara attempts to infer that even though there was permission for sprinkling, the invalid intention is not enough to remove the law of misuse. Once again, however, the answer is that “before the sprinkling” may mean that there was not enough time to sprinkle. The blood was received immediately before sunset, so the sprinkling was no longer possible.
The Gemara asks the same question: If the distinction is really based on whether there was time to sprinkle, why not say explicitly “before sunset” and “after sunset”? The answer is the same. The phrase “before the sprinkling” means before the time when sprinkling was possible, and “after the sprinkling” means after the time when sprinkling was possible. Again, we have no clear proof concerning permission to eat.
The Gemara continues: “Come and hear: With regard to the most sacred sacrifices, there is misuse.” This is a case involving an invalid intention in the most sacred sacrifices. The wording indicates that misuse remains even in a case in which the blood was sprinkled. The Gemara asks whether this proves that permission to eat is required. Perhaps the reason the law of misuse remains is that the invalid intention does not give permission to eat. If the blood had been sprinkled properly, all other factors being equal, the law of misuse would have been removed. This would prove that permission to eat is the determining factor.
The Gemara rejects the proof. Perhaps the teaching is referring to a case in which the blood was not sprinkled. It is teaching that if the blood was not sprinkled and there was an invalid intention, the law of misuse remains. But if the blood was not sprinkled and there was no invalid intention, the sacrifice would have been fit for sprinkling, and the law of misuse would be removed. According to this explanation, the teaching is a proof concerning permission for sprinkling, not permission to eat.
The Gemara then asks: What if the blood was sprinkled? If it was sprinkled with an invalid intention, perhaps there is no misuse. Why, then, would the teaching mention the lighter category of sacrifices? It could have remained within the category of the most sacred sacrifices and drawn a distinction between before and after the sprinkling.
The answer is that the teaching wanted to provide a case in which there is no misuse. In the most sacred sacrifices, even after an invalid sprinkling, the law of misuse remains, in accordance with Rav Gidel. Therefore, the teaching had to move to the lighter category of sacrifices in order to provide an example where there is no misuse.
Let us restate the Gemara’s reasoning. If the blood was sprinkled with an invalid intention in the most sacred sacrifices, the law of misuse remains. If this were not the point of the teaching, there would have been no need to move to the lighter category of sacrifices. The author could have remained within the most sacred sacrifices and taught the distinction between before and after sprinkling. The fact that the teaching moves to the lighter sacrifices indicates that it is searching for a case in which there is no misuse.
But the Gemara then explains why the lighter sacrifices were mentioned. It was necessary to teach the law of misuse. In order to bring something into the category of misuse, the sprinkling must be valid. An invalid sprinkling does not bring the lighter sacrifices into the category of misuse. However, once something is already subject to misuse, as in the case of the most sacred sacrifices, even an invalid sprinkling can remove it from the law of misuse. This is the principle of Rav Gidel.
The teaching is therefore saying as follows: In the case of the most sacred sacrifices, when there is an invalid intention, the law of misuse remains even after the sprinkling, because the sprinkling does not give permission to eat. However, if the sprinkling is valid, there is no misuse. In the case of the lighter sacrifices, a valid sprinkling is required to bring the sacrifice into the category of misuse in the first place. An invalid sprinkling is not sufficient.
This is why the teaching needed to mention both categories. The novelty concerning the most sacred sacrifices is that an invalid sprinkling can remove the law of misuse. The novelty concerning the lighter sacrifices is that an invalid sprinkling cannot introduce the law of misuse. Therefore, this teaching does not prove that permission to eat is required. It is consistent with the principle that permission for sprinkling is sufficient.
We now begin the new Mishnah. Until this point, we had learned that once there is permission for the priests, there is no longer misuse. We struggled to understand what “permission for the priests” means. Does it mean permission to eat? Does it mean permission for sprinkling? Does it mean permission resulting from the slaughter? There were different opinions. The basic understanding was that once there is some level of permission for the priests, the law of misuse is removed. Therefore, the sacrifices can no longer be called sacred objects in the same sense, because the priests are able to eat them, and once they are no longer treated as objects of that level of sanctity, there is no misuse.
The Gemara now adds another law. In addition to the fact that permission for the priests removes misuse, there is an additional rule: the sprinkling itself removes the meat from the law of misuse. This additional rule has practical consequences in cases where the meat itself is already invalid, and the priests cannot eat it and do not receive permission to eat it. Nevertheless, the sprinkling itself may still remove the meat from the law of misuse.
The Mishnah will discuss cases in which the sprinkling was valid, but the meat had already become invalid. Until now, we discussed invalid intention in the sprinkling itself. Now we are discussing a valid sprinkling performed on meat that was already invalid beforehand.
The first case is meat from the most sacred sacrifices that left its permitted area and then returned. Once the meat has left, it can no longer become fit again, and the priests can never eat that piece of meat. In such a case, if the meat left before the sprinkling and then returned, and the blood was subsequently sprinkled, the sprinkling does not affect that piece of meat. The meat must still be burned.
Nevertheless, the Mishnah says that there is misuse. The sprinkling itself was valid, but it cannot help meat that had already left its permitted area. There is never permission for the priests to eat that meat. Therefore, the law of misuse remains.
There is no liability for eating this meat on account of invalid intention, leftover meat, or ritual impurity. Since the meat left its permitted area, the sprinkling cannot cause those other prohibitions to apply to it. The essential principle is that invalid intention, leftover meat, and ritual impurity apply only when the sprinkling is a valid act capable of permitting the meat. Here, although the sprinkling itself was performed properly, it is not a sprinkling that permits this meat, because the meat had already left its permitted area.
We learned elsewhere that an invalid intention applies only when the service of the sacrifice is completed in a valid manner. The invalid element must occur at some point in the process, but the rest of the service must be completed properly. Here, the sprinkling is not considered a valid sprinkling for this meat because the meat had already left. Therefore, one cannot impose the laws of invalid intention, leftover meat, or ritual impurity on it.
Rabbi Akiva says the opposite. He says that even in this case there is no misuse, and that the meat is subject to the laws of invalid intention, leftover meat, and ritual impurity. His position is that the sprinkling can remove the law of misuse even from meat that had left its permitted area. The sprinkling does not have to provide permission for the priests to eat. The sprinkling itself is sufficient to remove the law of misuse.
Rabbi Akiva therefore follows the opinion we saw earlier: actual eating is not required. The sprinkling itself can remove the law of misuse. In this case, the meat had left its permitted area and can never again be eaten by the priests. Nevertheless, after it returned and the blood was sprinkled, Rabbi Akiva says that the sprinkling removes the law of misuse.
The first opinion holds that the sprinkling does not remove the law of misuse because it is not a sprinkling that permits the meat. The meat had already become invalid. Since the sprinkling accomplishes nothing for that piece of meat, there is no permission for the priests and the law of misuse remains. Once the sprinkling is not a permitting act, the other prohibitions also do not apply. Invalid intention, leftover meat, and ritual impurity apply only when the sprinkling is valid in the relevant sense.
Rabbi Akiva disagrees. He holds that the sprinkling itself removes the law of misuse, even though the meat will never be permitted to the priests. In his view, the sprinkling can affect meat that is already invalid.
Rabbi Akiva brings a proof from a case involving two sin offerings. A person designated a sin offering and then lost it, so he designated another animal in its place. He later found both animals. The law is that he may bring only one of them; the other is left to die. However, in this case he slaughtered both animals and received the blood from one of them. He then sprinkled the blood of that animal.
Rabbi Akiva says that just as the blood of the first sin offering permits the meat of that same offering, it also permits the meat of the other animal. The blood of one animal can remove the law of misuse from the meat of the other animal, even though the second animal is not being brought as the offering. If the blood of one animal can affect the meat of another animal, then certainly the blood should be able to affect the meat of its own animal, even if that meat had previously left its permitted area.
The Gemara does not immediately challenge Rabbi Akiva’s reasoning. What is the logic of the comparison? In the case of the two animals, the second animal is one that should not be offered because the original offering was found. It is subject to the law that the animal is left to die. Nevertheless, Rabbi Akiva says that the sprinkling of the first animal can remove the law of misuse from the second animal.
There is only one sin offering that is required. One does not bring two offerings for the same sin. The second animal is not being left to die because the sprinkling has made it fit; it is left to die because of the general rule concerning an offering that was lost and then found. Rabbi Akiva nevertheless teaches that the sprinkling of the first animal can affect the second one.
The Gemara then returns to the case of the meat that left its permitted area. If the sprinkling of one animal can remove misuse from the meat of another animal that is invalid, then certainly the sprinkling should be able to remove misuse from meat of the same animal. In that case, the blood and the meat belong to the same offering; the only problem is that the meat had left its permitted area.
The Gemara now presents the second case of the Mishnah: the sacrificial portions of the lighter sacrifices that left their permitted area and then returned. With regard to the lighter sacrifices, the initial position is that there is no law of misuse before the sprinkling. The law of misuse begins only after the blood has been sprinkled.
Here, the sacrificial portions left before the sprinkling and then returned. The blood was subsequently sprinkled. According to the first opinion, there is still no misuse. This is consistent with the ruling regarding the most sacred sacrifices: just as a valid sprinkling does not remove misuse from meat that had left its permitted area, a valid sprinkling also does not introduce misuse into sacrificial portions that had left their permitted area.
Rabbi Akiva, however, would say that the sprinkling is sufficient to introduce the law of misuse even in this case. The same principles apply in both directions. If the sprinkling can remove misuse from the most sacred sacrifices even when the meat had left its permitted area, then the sprinkling can also bring the lighter sacrifices into the category of misuse, even when their sacrificial portions had left their permitted area.
The commentary explains that the normal valid sprinkling brings the lighter sacrifices into the law of misuse. However, when the sprinkling is performed on sacrificial portions that had left their permitted area, the sprinkling cannot bring them into the law of misuse according to the first opinion. It is not a valid permitting act with respect to those portions.
The Gemara asks why the Mishnah had to state this dispute twice—once regarding the most sacred sacrifices and once regarding the lighter sacrifices. The basic reasoning seems to be the same. If the sprinkling cannot remove misuse from the most sacred sacrifices, then it should also be unable to introduce misuse into the lighter sacrifices. Why was it necessary to repeat the dispute in both contexts?
The Gemara answers that the second case teaches an additional point. If the Mishnah had stated the dispute only with regard to the most sacred sacrifices, one might have thought that the first opinion is being strict only because it is attempting to preserve the existing law of misuse. In that case, the sprinkling would not be sufficient to remove misuse. But perhaps when the issue is whether to introduce an object into the category of misuse, even that opinion would agree that any kind of sprinkling is sufficient.
In other words, perhaps the first opinion is stringent when removing the law of misuse but lenient when introducing it. Therefore, the Mishnah needed to state the dispute concerning the lighter sacrifices as well. It teaches that the same requirement applies in both directions: a valid sprinkling is required to remove the law of misuse from the most sacred sacrifices, and a valid sprinkling is also required to bring the lighter sacrifices into the law of misuse.
Alternatively, if the Mishnah had stated only the case of the lighter sacrifices, one might have thought that Rabbi Akiva was stringent in that case and required the sprinkling to be effective in order to introduce misuse, but that he might agree that an invalid sprinkling cannot remove the existing law of misuse from the most sacred sacrifices. The Mishnah therefore teaches both cases to show that the dispute is parallel in both directions.
Thus, the disagreement is based on the same underlying question. Is the sprinkling itself sufficient to affect the law of misuse, even when it does not permit the priests to eat? The first opinion says no: the sprinkling must be a valid act that permits the meat or sacrificial portions. Rabbi Akiva says yes: the sprinkling itself can remove or introduce the law of misuse, even when the sacrifice remains unfit for the priests to eat.