GEMARA: The mishna teaches that one is liable for the prohibition of notar and the prohibition of eating an item while ritually impure, both with regard to items that have permitting factors and items that do not have permitting factors. The Gemara asks: From where are these matters derived? The Gemara answers that this is as the Sages taught in a baraita: One might have thought that one is liable due to partaking of sacrificial food in a state of ritual impurity only with regard to an item that has permitting factors.

The baraita continues: And this is a logical inference: If with regard to piggul, which renders one who eats it unwittingly liable through one awareness, i.e., for one to be liable to bring a sin offering it is enough for him to become aware after the fact that he had sinned unwittingly, and its offering for one who eats it unwittingly is fixed, and there are no circumstances in which its general prohibition was permitted, i.e., it is never permitted to eat piggul, and yet one is liable due to the prohibition of partaking of piggul only for an item that has permitting factors, the same should certainly apply to ritual impurity.

The Gemara elaborates: Then with regard to ritual impurity, where one is liable only in a case of two awarenesses, i.e., one is liable only if he was aware of his impurity before eating the meat, and then forgot and ate, and afterward again became aware of his impurity; and its offering to atone for this transgression is a sliding-scale offering, which varies according to the offender’s financial status; and there are circumstances in which its general prohibition was permitted to the community, as communal offerings are sacrificed in the Temple in a state of impurity, under certain circumstances; is it not right that one should be liable for violating the prohibition of partaking of the meat while ritually impure only for an item that has permitting factors?

Therefore, the verse states: “Say to them: Anyone of all your seed throughout your generations, that approaches the sacred items, which the children of Israel consecrate to the Lord, while his impurity is on him, that soul shall be cut off from before Me: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 22:3). The verse, which deals with eating while ritually impure, is speaking of all the sacred items, whether or not they have a permitting factor. One might have thought that they should be liable for eating them immediately, as soon as they have been verbally consecrated, even before they have been placed into a service vessel. The verse states: “That approaches the sacred items.” This clause is puzzling, as it apparently leads to the unlikely conclusion that liability applies after one has touched the item.

The baraita explains that Rabbi Elazar said: But is there a case of one who touches an item who is liable? Rather, how is this possible? The answer is that the phrase “approaches [yikrav] the sacred items” can also be understood as: The sacred items that are fit to be sacrificed [yikarev], and therefore with regard to any item that has permitting factors, one is not liable until the permitting factors have been sacrificed. And in the case of any item that does not have permitting factors, one is not liable until it is sanctified in a service vessel.

MISHNA: This mishna, which also appears in tractate Temura, deals with the five sin offerings left to die. It is cited here because of its relevance to the halakhot of misuse. The mishna first mentions three of those offerings: The offspring of a sin offering, and an animal that is the substitute for a sin offering, whether or not the owners achieved atonement by means of another offering, and a sin offering whose owners have died before the offering was sacrificed, shall die.

And the other two sin offerings left to die are the sin offering whose year since birth passed and is therefore unfit for sacrifice, and a sin offering that was lost and when it was found it was blemished, with regard to which the halakhot are as follows: If the sin offering was found after the owner achieved atonement through the sacrifice of another animal as a sin offering, then the blemished animal shall die, and it does not render a non-sacred animal exchanged for it a substitute, as it is has neither inherent sanctity, which would make it fit for sacrifice on the altar, nor sanctity that inheres in its value. And one may not derive benefit from the found animal ab initio, but if he derived benefit from the animal he is not liable for its misuse.