The Sin Offering Comes Only for Acts Done in Error

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 464:5

Curated by Arthur·Told by Maggid·

"In error" (Leviticus 4:2): for an act done in error one brings the offering, but one does not bring it for a deliberate act. Is this not a matter of logic? If for grave idolatry the deliberate act was not treated like the inadvertent act, then surely for the lighter commandments the deliberate act should not be treated like the inadvertent act. If so, perhaps the deliberate transgression of idolatry, being grave, is set aside until the Day of Atonement, and the deliberate transgression of the commandments, being light, is likewise set aside until the Day of Atonement; rather one would bring a sin offering and gain atonement at once. Therefore Scripture teaches "if a person shall sin in error": for error he brings it and not for the deliberate act. The verse "the commandments of the LORD" excludes the commandments of the king and the commandments of a court. "From all the commandments of the LORD" teaches "some" and not "all," excluding the hearing of a summons, the utterance of the lips, and the defilement of the Sanctuary and its holy things. From "which ought not to be done" we learn that liability is only for an act whose deliberate doing carries excision and whose inadvertent doing requires a sin offering. Thus "one law shall there be for you for him who acts in error" (Numbers 15:29): everyone who acts in error is judged like one who served idols, and just as idolatry is singled out as an act whose deliberate doing carries excision and whose inadvertent doing requires a sin offering, so too every such act. By this measure the sages drew in forbidden unions and the desecration of the Sabbath, since from the day they were forbidden they were never permitted, a court imposes death for them, and their prohibition binds the descendants of Noah as it binds Israel.

Themes

SinAtonementCommandments

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