One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
שְׁגָגוֹת
Offerings for Unintentional Transgressions 12-14
Sefer Korbanot · The sacrifice a court brings for its own erroneous ruling, the eight conditions that must all hold before the people go free, and the line between a ruling and a plain mistake
71
Judges whose ruling can move the sin off the people
12
Bulls, one from every tribe, for a single ruling
8
Conditions that must all hold or the court is exempt
1
Objection spoken aloud, and the liability moves
Ch 12The offering that belongs to a ruling
- The court brings and the people do not. Where the High Court erred in a ruling and the people transgressed while relying on it, the court is obligated in a sin offering for its erroneous ruling, and this holds even if the judges themselves performed no deed, since we do not consider the deeds of the judges at all, only their ruling. (12:1)
- Twelve bulls, and for foreign worship twelve goats as well. An erroneous ruling about foreign worship brings a bull as a burnt offering and a goat as a sin offering from every tribe; an erroneous ruling about any other karet prohibition carrying a fixed sin offering brings a bull as a sin offering from every tribe, each called a bull brought for a lapse of awareness by the congregation. (12:1)
- Even the tribes that did not transgress bring. Whether all of Eretz Yisrael acted, or the majority of the people though they were a minority of tribes, or the majority of tribes though they were a minority of the people, every tribe brings, and even a single tribe that was itself the majority of the nation obligates all twelve. (12:1)
- A court in doubt brings nothing. When the court is unsure whether or not it ruled erroneously it brings no provisional guilt offering, since the verse makes the liability depend on the sin becoming known. (12:2)
- Eight conditions, and all of them must hold. The High Court of 71, the head of the academy sitting with them, every member fit to rule, all or the majority erring, an explicit ruling relayed in words, the majority of the people acting because of it, those people acting in error, a partial rather than total nullification, and knowledge of the precise matter when the error surfaces; fail one and the court is exempt while every transgressor brings a fixed sin offering. (12:2)
RememberThe sacrifice does not follow the hands. It follows the sentence that moved them.
Ch 13What happens when a condition fails
- A tribal court, or one unfit member, changes everything. If the ruling came from the court of a single tribe, or from the High Court without the head of the academy, or from a body containing a member unfit for appointment, the court is exempt and each person who acted brings a fixed sin offering. (13:1)
- Protest aloud and the court goes free; stay silent and it does not. A judge who knew of the error and objected, and was outvoted, leaves the court exempt and all who acted liable; one who knew and kept silent, so that the ruling issued with no dissenting view and spread, leaves the court liable and the people exempt, though the silent judge who himself acts on it is liable, because he did not rely on the court. (13:1)
- A discussion is not a ruling. If the court debated and said the matter is permitted but never issued a ruling and never told the people that they are permitted to act, one who overheard and acted is liable individually and the court is exempt; the same where only a minority of the congregation acted. (13:1)
- How the majority is counted. Members of the Sanhedrin who act on their own ruling are excluded from the count, the Diaspora is not counted since the term congregation applies to the inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael, Efraim and Menashe count as one tribe, and where the proportion shifted, liability follows the proportion at the time of the transgression. (13:2, 13:3)
- The scholar who obeys against his own knowledge. A sage or a student able to rule, who knew the court had erred and acted anyway because he held it a mitzvah to obey the court, brings a fixed sin offering individually and is not counted among those who transgressed because of the ruling; a common person in the same position is exempt, since his knowledge of the prohibitions is not definitive. (13:5)
RememberOne judge speaking up shifts the sacrifice from seventy one men onto an entire nation.
Ch 14A ruling, an error, and the man who stopped asking
- Uprooting a whole law is not a ruling. Where the court erred and ruled to eliminate one of the Torah's fundamental laws and the whole people acted on it, the court is exempt and every transgressor brings a fixed sin offering, since the verse speaks of a matter lapsing and not of an entire fundamental law. (14:1)
- Part of a prohibition, never all of it. Permitting prostration to a false deity, or transfer between domains on Shabbat, amounts to denying the prohibition itself and counts as forgetting rather than ruling; permitting throwing while forbidding carrying, or permitting the blood collected in the heart while forbidding the blood of slaughter, is a genuine ruling and obligates the court. (14:2)
- Clouds and a returning husband are errors, not rulings. A court that declared Shabbat over because the sun was hidden by cloud, or permitted a woman to remarry on testimony that her husband had died, has erred rather than ruled; the individuals bring sin offerings and the court brings nothing. (14:3)
- After the retraction, a provisional guilt offering. Once the court has recognized its error and the correction has been disseminated, one who still transgresses on the old ruling brings an asham talui, because he should have continued to inquire; but one who saw the original ruling and had already left for another region is exempt, since he cannot inquire where he now is. (14:5)
RememberA court answers for what it taught, not for what it failed to see.