Keritot 24A

במפריש שני אשמות לאחריות ונתכפר באחת מהן, דשני ירעה עד שיסתאב וימכר ויפלו דמיו לנדבה.

in a case where one designates two provisional guilt offerings from the outset as a guarantee, so that if one is lost he may achieve atonement with the other, and he achieved atonement with one of them. He concedes that the second animal retains its sanctity and should graze until it becomes blemished and that then it should be sold and the money received for it should be allocated for communal gift offerings.

מאי טעמא? עד כאן לא פליגי רבי מאיר עליהון דרבנן אלא משום דלא גלי דעתיה דלבו נוקפו, אבל הכא, מכדי חד הוא דאיבעי ליה לאפרושי, מאי טעמא אפריש תרי? דסבר: אי מירכס חדא מיכפרנא באידך חבריה, וכיון דגלי דעתיה דלבו נוקפו היה, הואיל וכך היה גמר והקדישו.

What is the reason that R' Meir agrees in such a case? R' Meir disagrees with the Rabbis in a case where one brings a provisional guilt offering and later discovers with certainty that he did not sin, only because R' Meir holds that the one consecrating the animal did not initially reveal that his heart was striking him with pangs of conscience. But here, in a case where he set aside two animals as provisional guilt offerings, since he was required to designate only one animal, what is the reason that he designated two? Evidently, the reason is that he thought: If one of the animals is lost, I will achieve atonement with the other one. And as he revealed by this scrupulous behavior that his heart was striking him with pangs of conscience, since that was so, he wholeheartedly resolved to consecrate the animal.

אמר רב יהודה אמר רב: מודים חכמים לרבי מאיר באשם תלוי שהוזמו עדיו, דיצא וירעה בעדר.

§ Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: The Rabbis concede to R' Meir in a case of a provisional guilt offering where two witnesses testified that someone may have committed a sin, e.g., that he ate a piece of fat with regard to which there was uncertainty if it was permitted or forbidden fat, and later those witnesses were rendered conspiring witnesses, that the animal should go out and graze among the flock as a non-sacred animal.