The Gemara asks: But can one derive the possible from the impossible? Those other cases include offerings that by definition do not apply to a community; how can one learn from them with regard to cases where they are possible? The Gemara answers: Rabbi Shimon learns this tradition as one unit, i.e., all the cases of sin offerings left to die are given as one halakha, and therefore there is no difference in their application.

Reish Lakish says in explanation of this matter: When Moses received this tradition at Sinai, the halakhot of four sin offerings that must be left to die were given to the Jewish people, whereas the fifth sin offering is left to graze until it develops a blemish. But as they did not know which of the sin offerings was the one that should be left to graze, they established these halakhot with regard to all five sin offerings, that they are all left to die. However, given that the four sin offerings were said together, either all four are communal sin offerings, or all four are sin offerings of the individual. And if it enters your mind that the four cases of sin offerings that must be left to die, as stated to Moses, referred to communal offerings, are all of these four sin offerings possible as communal offerings? Rather, the tradition is with regard to sin offerings of the individual. Rather, perforce one must derive the cases that are unspecified in terms of their halakhot from those cases that are specified.

Rabbi Natan says: Only one case of a sin offering that must be left to die was given to them at Sinai, while the other four sin offerings are left to graze until they develop a blemish. But as they did not know which was the sin offering that must be left to die, the Jewish people established it as applying to all five kinds of sin offering.

The Gemara interrupts Rabbi Natan’s statement to raise a difficulty with regard to his explanation: But why didn’t the Jewish people first see with regard to which category they learned that a sin offering must be left to die, whether in reference to one of the three cases that are found only in the offering of an individual, or to one of the two cases that are also found in the offering of a community? If they knew which group of sin offerings must be left to die, they could have kept the other group in accordance with its original halakha, that it is left to graze.

The Gemara answers: They forgot two matters. They did not remember which of the five sin offerings must be left to die, and they also forgot to which category it applied, whether to a communal offering or an offering of an individual. And for this reason it was difficult for them, and they were forced to rule that all of these sin offerings must be left to die.

The Gemara returns to its citation of the statement of Rabbi Natan, who proceeds to explain Rabbi Shimon’s opinion in the mishna in a similar manner to Reish Lakish: And if it enters your mind that the four cases of sin offerings that are left to graze, which were stated to Moses as one unit, involved communal offerings, are all of these five sin offerings applicable in the case of communal offerings? Rather, conclude from it that one learns the cases that are unspecified from those cases that are specified: Just as the specified cases apply only to an offering of an individual and not to a communal offering, so too, the cases that are not specified apply only to an offering of an individual, but not to a communal offering.

MISHNA: There is greater stringency with regard to sacrificial animals than there is with regard to a substitute, and greater stringency with regard to a substitute than there is with regard to sacrificial animals. The Mishna explains: There is greater stringency with regard to sacrificial animals than there is with regard to a substitute, as sacrificial animals render a non-sacred animal exchanged for them a substitute, but a substitute does not render a non-sacred animal exchanged for it a substitute. Furthermore, the community and the partners consecrate animals as offerings, but they do not substitute non-sacred animals for their offerings. And one consecrates fetuses in utero and one can consecrate an animal’s limbs, but one cannot substitute non-sacred animals for them.

There is greater stringency with regard to a substitute than there is with regard to sacrificial animals, as, if one substituted a non-sacred blemished animal for an unblemished sacrificial animal, then the animal with a permanent blemish is imbued with inherent sanctity, which is not the case with regard to consecration. And in addition, those blemished animals consecrated through substitution do not emerge from their consecrated status to assume non-sacred status by means of redemption,