One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
בְּכוֹרוֹת · שְׁגָגוֹת
Firstlings 8 · Offerings for Unintentional Transgressions 1-2
Sefer Korbanot · When a miscount in the corral still consecrates, and exactly what a person must not have known for a sin to count as inadvertent
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Sins bringing a fixed sin offering
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Karet transgressions that bring no offering
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The animal consecrated when called the tenth
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Sin offerings apiece when a city keeps Yom Kippur as a weekday
BE 8Counting the flock, and the errors that stick
- Only the two neighbors of the tenth. Calling the ninth or the eleventh "the tenth" consecrates that animal; the eighth or lower and the twelfth or higher are not consecrated, and the Rambam states that this is a halachah received by the Oral Tradition. (8:1)
- Three animals, three different fates. The ninth is not sacrificed but eaten after it becomes blemished, the tenth is the tithe, and the eleventh is offered as a peace offering requiring accompanying offerings and can create no substitute, being itself like a substitute. (8:2)
- An agent's error consecrates nothing. Where the owner appointed an agent to tithe and the agent erred on the ninth or the eleventh, only the true tenth is consecrated, for he was not appointed as an agent to err and cause his principal a loss. (8:2)
- Silence at the tenth saves the eleventh. The eleventh is consecrated only where the tenth was called "the ninth"; if the tenth was called "the tenth," or nothing was said at all, the eleventh stays ordinary, since the tenth is consecrated of its own accord and the name never left it. (8:3)
- Counted in a fitting manner means exempt. If an animal already counted jumps back into the corral, all of them are exempt because of the doubt; and where a lamb was counted in a manner fit for tithing it is exempt even if the tenth was never actually taken. (8:14, 8:10)
RememberThe tenth is holy whether you name it or not, so your error only lands where it first knocked the name off something true.
SH 1Who owes an offering, and which one
- Deed, negative commandment, karet. A fixed sin offering is owed for the inadvertent violation of a negative commandment that involves a deed and whose willful violation carries karet, and bringing it is itself a positive commandment. (1:1)
- The three that bring nothing. Blasphemy brings no offering because it involves no deed; failing to circumcise and failing to bring the Paschal offering bring none because they are positive commandments, and the verse speaks of one who acts in violation. (1:2)
- Two who bring the adjustable offering instead. An impure person who partook of sacrificial meat and an impure person who entered the Temple do not bring the fixed sin offering but the adjustable guilt offering, an animal if wealthy and a fowl or a tenth of an ephah if poor. (1:3, 1:4)
- Rank changes the animal, except for idolatry. A commoner brings a she goat or a ewe, a king a male goat, an anointed priest a bull that is burnt; but for inadvertent idolatry every one alike brings a female goat in its first year. (1:4)
- One law, counted person by person. If the people of a city thought the day ordinary and it was Yom Kippur, each transgressor brings two sin offerings, ewes or she goats, one for eating and one for the labor. (1:5)
RememberForty three ways to break something by accident, written out in full before a single word of repair.
SH 2What the mind had to be doing
- Inadvertent at both ends or not at all. Lifting an object willfully and setting it down inadvertently, or the reverse, exempts; liability requires that the act be unwitting from beginning to end. (2:1)
- Knowing less obligates, knowing more can exempt. One who knew the act was a negative commandment but not that it carries karet is inadvertent and liable; one who knew of the karet but was unaware that a sacrifice is owed is considered to have acted willfully. (2:2)
- The transgression must have a name. One who cannot say which prohibition he violated is exempt, since the verse requires that he know it; but where he knows the prohibition and only the object is in doubt, two women, two lamps, two pots of forbidden fat, he is liable. (2:3, 2:5)
- License covers the hidden defect, not the visible one. One who slaughtered a Paschal offering on Shabbat later found tereifah in a hidden place is exempt, but a blemish or a readily apparent defect makes him liable, since he should have checked before slaughtering. (2:10)
- Wanting the mitzvah is not doing it. One who intended to eat the roasted Paschal meat and inadvertently ate leftover meat beside it is liable, since he performed no mitzvah in the eating. (2:16)
RememberThe man who reached for the mitzvah and picked up the wrong plate is liable, because good intention is not a mitzvah.