Horayot 8: On the Ten Mitzvot, Belief in G-d, Details of Sacrifice

Who is responsible for mistakes?  As I continue to learn Masechet Hodayot, I become more and more aware of the rabbis' concerns regarding justice.  One should not be punished for a mistake, an accident, in the same way that one is punished for an intentional error.  One person or community should not have to experience a punishment if another person or group erred.  But each specific case is different.  And so Masechet Hodayot is short, but it is filled with these complex examples.

Today we discuss a number of issues related to the priests, mistaken rulings, and how those violations might be punished.  Adultery and idolatry are of particular concern.  The beginning of our daf teaching some important insights of the rabbis regarding the ten mitzvot, commandments, and their reading of people who do not believe in G-d's mitzvot. 

• making a mistake and ignoring Moshe's mitzvot is punishable by a sin offering
• what mitzvah is equivalent to all mitzvot? 
• the rabbis prove this is idolatry in a number of ways
• or perhaps the first of the ten mitzvot is not a commandment at all; the first is that we cannot worship idols
• perhaps the first thing written, "I am your G-d" is simply underlies all ten mitzvot
• Thus it may not be necessary to believe in G-d to observe all of G-d's mitzvot
• However the rabbis assume that if one does not believe in G-d or if one worships idols, certainly that person would not care about the other mitzvot 
• the priest atones by sprinkeling the blood of a sin offering
• the rabbis have to understand why instructions are repetitive: "and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning the sin which he has sinned"
• if the blood is sprinkled for the sake of atonement and not for the sake of the sinner, the sinner is liable
• "his sin offering" is interpreted differently than "sin offering" 
• "his burnt offering" is interpreted differently than "burnt offering"
• the rabbis argue about possible meanings of "his meal offering" and "his libation"
• a nazirite's sin offering is different from others
• a leper's sin offering is different from others
• eating forbidden fat is punishable by karet
• eating forbidden fat is an easy mistake to make
• nazirites and lepers have different access to recourse should they face this transgression
• different places might have different numbers of idol worshippers
• we would have to know whether idolaters or non-idolaters are the majority in any place to make any assumptions at all
• the rabbis go into great detail regarding which sacrifices should be made for which transgressions by which individuals or which groups

The larger ideas are far more intriguing to me than the tiny details that are presented for much of today's daf.