Rabbi Sara led our discussion, starting at Leviticus (Vayikra) 4:3. We discussed offending by mistake/offending unintentionally. Verse 3, which we discussed last session, is about a case in which the person committed an offense but the priest told him to do it. We do not know why the priest did that but can assume it either was through ignorance of the law or of some circumstances, R. Sara told us. We noted that Alter says חָטָא  in the kal form means to commit an offense and in the piel form means to remove or cancel. That explains why it is sometimes translated as sin or offense and other times as canceling, removing or purging.

I asked who the offense affects. Does a sin affect the person who does it? The mishkan? The community? Who is the sin removed from when a person does a sacrifice? R. Sara said that we have not been told that yet. We noted the priest putting his hand on the bull’s head, slaughtering the bull before YHVH, taking some blood to the tent of meeting, putting his fingers in the blood and sprinkling it seven times in front of YHVH before the curtain of the holy. He then puts some incense on the horns of the incense altar and then pours all the rest of the blood on the base of the burnt offering altar. After that, he raises up and disposes of the fat and various organs. Raises up, R. Sara pointed out, can mean exalts. Everything they could have eaten, R. Sara pointed out, is burned up. This distinguishes these sacrifices from prior ones in which food is eaten. Neva pointed out that burning up all edible food would be a negative motivator for priests not to declare their unintentional sins (which is an example of why she does not favor negative motivators).

We discussed why there are horns on the altar. Possibly they are there because that’s what altars looked like at that time and place. Another possibility, Neva pointed out, is that they keep sacrifices from rolling off the altar. We discussed how strong a person would have to be to handle a heavy bull sacrifice. R. Sara pointed out that priests made such sacrifices a lot so they became and were strong enough to handle it. It is just the life of people who raise and eat animals to have to handle them and so they become strong by doing so.