One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
שְׁגָגוֹת
Offerings for Unintentional Transgressions 9-11
Sefer Korbanot · The guilt offering that is never brought on a doubt, the offering that rises and falls with a person's means, and the exact awareness required before impurity in the Temple becomes a sin
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Sins that carry a definitive guilt offering
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People obligated in the adjustable offering
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Of an ephah of flour, the lowest rung
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Stages of awareness Temple impurity requires
Ch 9The guilt offering that refuses a doubt
- Five sins, and never on a maybe. Intimacy with a consecrated maidservant, robbery denied under oath, misappropriating consecrated property, a nazirite who contracts impurity, and purification from tzara'at; it is called a definitive guilt offering, asham vadai, precisely because it is not brought because of a doubt. (9:1)
- Her lashes set his liability. By the Oral Tradition, when the consecrated maidservant is liable for lashes he is liable for a sacrifice, and when she is exempt from lashes he is exempt from the sacrifice. (9:2)
- One woman, one offering; many women, many. A hundred acts across a hundred lapses of awareness with a single consecrated maidservant bring one guilt offering, but relations with several consecrated maidservants bring one for each, even within a single lapse. (9:5)
- Five dishes, five guilt offerings. One who derives a p'rutah's worth of benefit from consecrated food in five different dishes in one lapse of awareness is liable for each dish separately, even though the meat came from one sacrifice, because the dishes create a distinction. (9:9)
- A doubt exempts completely. Wherever a doubt arises whether one committed a transgression carrying this offering, including a doubt whether one caused misappropriation of consecrated property, he is not liable at all. (9:11)
RememberThe word vadai is the whole chapter. This offering was never once brought on a maybe.
Ch 10The offering that goes up and comes down
- Six who bring it. One purified from tzara'at, a woman after childbirth, one who falsely swore he had no testimony to give, one who broke a simple oath inadvertently, and one who ate consecrated food or entered the Temple while ritually impure without knowing. (10:1)
- Three rungs, set by means alone. A ewe or a she-goat; lacking means, two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one a burnt offering and one a sin offering; lacking means for fowl, a tenth of an ephah of flour, called the meal offering of a sinner. (10:4)
- The husband brings on his wife's behalf. Whenever a woman is obligated in a sacrifice her husband must bring it for her, at the poor person's level if he is poor and the wealthy person's if he is wealthy, and a man may bring a poor person's offering for his son, daughter, servant or maidservant. (10:6)
- Duress exempts entirely. For every sin here whose offering is owed whether one transgressed willfully or inadvertently, one who transgressed under forces beyond his control brings nothing at all, and all the more so for the rest. (10:8)
RememberThe only thing this offering measures about you is what you can actually afford.
Ch 11Impurity in the Temple, and the knowledge it requires
- Knowledge, a lapse, knowledge again. Unlike every other transgression punishable by karet, an impure person who entered the Temple or ate consecrated food is liable only if he knew at the outset, lost the awareness in between, and knew again afterwards; the Rambam lists six ways that lapse can occur, and all six oblige the offering. (11:1)
- When the obligation is unresolved, bring nothing. Those for whom a genuine doubt exists should not bring the sacrifice, lest they bring an unconsecrated animal into the Temple Courtyard; a fowl sin offering is different, since one who lacks atonement may not eat sacrificial food until he brings it. (11:2)
- No provisional guilt offering here. One unsure whether he entered the Temple or ate consecrated food while impure does not bring an asham talui, since that offering is brought only for a doubt about a karet prohibition whose inadvertent violation carries a fixed sin offering. (11:5)
- Two paths, and partial knowledge counts. He walked one of two paths, forgot it, walked the second, then entered or ate during a lapse of awareness: he is liable, because partial knowledge is considered complete knowledge. (11:6)
- Atonement for what was never known. Where he had awareness at the outset but never afterwards, the Yom Kippur goat sprinkled in the Holy of Holies suspends atonement until he brings his own; where he had awareness neither at the outset nor at the end, the goats of the festivals and of Rosh Chodesh atone. (11:9)
RememberEverywhere else a doubt lets you off. With the Temple and its food, uncertain knowledge is treated as certain.