Menachot 16: Timing of Inappropriate Thoughts

A new Mishna discusses inappropriate thoughts about eating the meal offering: will this disqualify the offering if it happened only when sacrificing one of the kometz, the handful of meal-offering, or the levona, the frankincense.  The Sages say that the inappropriate thoughts must happen during both so that the offering becomes piggul and the person who eats it is liable to receive karet.  Rabbi Meir rules against the rabbis: an inappropriate thought during either one of those sacrifices will make the offerings unfit.

The Mishna describes meal offerings that do not include levona:  

• that brought by a sinner who is obligated to bring sacrifices for each sin and who might bring a meal offering because s/he cannot afford a sin offering, and
• that brought by a sota, a woman suspected of having an affair

Those acts have only one element of sacrifice that permits one to consume the offering, and so the rabbis and Rabbi Meir agree.

Back in daf 13a, we learned about a debate between the Sages and Rabbi Yosei about whether or not inappropriate thoughts about frankincense would cause a problem if it happened when sacrificing the kometz, or vice versa.   This is different from today's debate.  Here, the rabbis consider whether thoughts about eating the offering are significant when they happen during one part of the sacrifice, or whether they must happen simultaneously.  Our Sages are that the offering cannot be consumed until both the frankincense and the the comet have been brought; to become piggul, the sacrifices must both have accompanied inappropriate thoughts.