One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
שְׁגָגוֹת
Offerings for Unintentional Transgressions 6-8
Sefer Korbanot · How one lapse of awareness is measured, what divides it, and what the man who is merely unsure must bring
39
Sin-offerings if he knew the day but not the labors
3
Eggs, the eating time in which half measures combine
4
Offerings for fat, blood, notar and piggul in one lapse
0
Offerings when he knows he sinned but not which sin
Ch 6One lapse of awareness, however many days it lasts
- Different days and different pots do not divide. One who ate forbidden fat on one day, the next, and the day after that in a single lapse of awareness brings one sin-offering, even from different pots; but where he became aware between the acts, he is liable for each. (6:1)
- Half measures join within the time to eat three eggs. Two half olive-sized portions eaten in one lapse combine, provided no more than that interval passed; an interruption and separate pots do not sever them. (6:1)
- Awareness divides even below the measure. Half a portion, then awareness, then a second half in a fresh lapse, and there is no offering at all; the same for writing one letter on Shabbat, becoming aware, and writing a second. (6:8)
- Distinct prohibitions each take their own offering. An impure man who ate an olive-sized portion of forbidden fat that was notar on Yom Kippur brings four sin-offerings and a guilt-offering for misappropriating consecrated property. (6:4)
- The middle offering covers all three. Two portions, then awareness of one, then a third in the unnoticed lapse: an offering for the first covers the first two, for the third covers the last two, and only an offering brought for the middle transgression atones for all three. (6:11)
RememberNothing divides a sin except the moment you notice it, and that moment divides even half a mouthful.
Ch 7Idolatry and Shabbat, where the count maps the forgetting
- What he forgot decides the count in idolatry. One who meant to serve but did not know these acts are service is liable for each act; one who knew the acts and only mistook the object, thinking that only gold and silver images qualify, brings a single sin-offering. (7:1)
- Forgetting the institution of Shabbat costs one offering. A person who does not know that Israel was commanded about Shabbat, or was taken among the nations as a child, brings one sin-offering for all the labors of all those Sabbaths; forgetting only that today is Shabbat costs one per Sabbath. (7:2)
- Knowing the day and not the labors costs thirty nine. One who knows it is Shabbat but does not know these labors are forbidden brings a sin-offering for every general category, up to all 39 in one lapse; forgetting both the day and the labors costs one. (7:3, 7:4)
- The weekdays in between count as awareness. Unaware which day was Shabbat while knowing the labors are forbidden, he reaped on one Sabbath, planted on the next and extended a vine on the third, and brings a sin-offering for each, since the intervening days are equivalent to gaining awareness. (7:9)
- One category, one offering, within a single lapse. A primary labor with its derivative, or several activities comprising one category such as sowing, replanting and grafting, carry a single sin-offering. (7:5, 7:7)
RememberThe man who forgot the most brings the least, because the offerings count places of darkness, not acts.
Ch 8The provisional guilt-offering, and its one hard condition
- Doubt tracks the fixed sin-offering. Every transgression carrying a fixed sin-offering when done inadvertently carries a provisional guilt-offering, an unblemished ram of the given value, where he is unsure whether he transgressed. (8:1)
- No offering without an established prohibition. One forbidden piece beside one permitted piece obligates; a single piece he was never sure about, or the fat of a ko'i, does not, and a doubtfully consecrated woman does not while a doubtfully divorced one does. (8:2, 8:3)
- Losing the evidence changes nothing. Two pieces, one forbidden and one permitted, he ate one inadvertently and a gentile or a dog ate the other, and he is still liable, since the prohibition was established before anything was eaten. (8:4)
- Certain guilt with an unknown name brings nothing. Forbidden fat and notar before him, he ate one and does not know which: no sin-offering, since he cannot identify the transgression, and no provisional offering either, because he knows with certainty that he transgressed. (8:5)
- Doubts multiply exactly as certainties would. Where certainty would obligate many sin-offerings, doubt obligates the same number of provisional offerings, and separate moments of suspicion divide them one from another. (8:6, 8:8)
RememberThe suspended offering is for a man who might be innocent, which is why the certainly guilty man who cannot name his sin has nothing to bring.