Zevachim 2: Offerings that are Permitted, Levels of Holiness

Our first Mishna teaches a number of points:

• any animal offering that was slaughtered as if it were a different offering or with the intent to throw its blood on the altar is kosher but the owner is not excused from his obligation
• the pascal offering and the sin offering are exceptions
• Rabbi Eliezer says that asham, reparation offerings, are excepted as well/ they are (patul, not unfit)
• Yosi ben Choni says that an animal offering that was slaughtered to be a pesach offering for a sin offering is permitted
• Shimon Ach Azaryah says that any animal offering that was slaughtered to G-d  and was of higher holiness is kosher; one who slaughtered to G-d an animal offering of a lower degree of holiness is patul, not unfit
• An example is provided: kodashim kalim, offerings of lower sanctity, are known because they are designated to be eaten by anyone, even Yisraelim - in Jerusalem usually for two days and a night, as opposed to those that may be eaten only by a male priest within one day
• if a first-born offering is slaughtered, it is kosher
• if a gift offering is slaughtered in the name of the first-born, it is patul, not unfit

The Gemara, of course, takes issue with each point of this new Mishna.  

• Why does the Mishna mention that the owner was not excused from his obligation?
• Among their answers, the rabbis note that we can learn the answer from either reasoning or from a verse
• Stam, something written or decided according to halacha, and lishma, something performed for its own sake, are compared
• There are six intentions when one offers an animal offering:
• which korban it is (Olah, etc.)
• for whom it atones
• that it is offered to G-d
• the animal fats (and the limbs if the offering is an blah) will be burned (and consumed, not roasted) on the altar
• it should be a pleasant aroma (the meat will be roasted only when it is put on the altar and not before)
• it should be pleasing to G-d
• The rabbis ask how Rava knows that a get written with an editor is not unfit
• If one overheard a scribe reciting the text of the get while writing it, he cannot divorce his wife with that document
• The scribe had not intended that that document be used for the purposes of divorce, and thus it should not be permitted