כי תחטא בשגגה, “if you transgress a law inadvertently;” sin offerings as a form of atonement are acceptable only when that sin had not been committed deliberately. Deliberately committed sins cannot be atoned for by that method. [There are some exceptions. Ed.]

מאחת מהנה, “of one of these;” the first letter מ in this expression is unnecessary, whereas the second letter מ introduces examples. An example of a similar construction is found in Hoseah 4,9: כעם ככהן, “ordinary people (will fare) as well as priests.” Another such construction can be found in Kings II 3,7: כמוני כמוך, כעמי כעמך, כסוסי כסוסיך, “I will do what you do; my troops will be your troops; my horses will be your horses.” A third example of such a construction is found in Psalms 139,12: כחשכה כאורה, “darkness is like light.”

. אם הכהן המשיח יחטא, “if the anointed priest were to commit an inadvertent sin;” because he is the High Priest, his sin offering will reflect this and he will offer a bull instead of a female goat.”

יחטא לאשמת העם, “so as to bring guilt on the people;” the High Priest may have given an erroneous halachic ruling, and the people, by following that ruling, all committed a sin by performing a forbidden act. We know that it was the duty of the people to accept the halachic rulings of the High Priest, seeing that the Torah wrote in Deuteronomy 33,10: יורו משפטיך ליעקב, “they (the Levites) are to teach you (the people) your laws.”

על חטאתו אשר חטא, “on account of his sin which he has sinned;” the word על occurs in this context also in Leviticus 1,4: לכפר עליו, “to make atonement on account of it.” Compare also Psalms 44,23: כי עליך הורגנו כל היום, “for we are being killed on Your account all day long.”

לפני ה, “before the Lord;” i.e. on the north side facing the entrance to the Tabernacle.

וסמך את ידו, “and he is to place the weight of his body with his hand;” no heaving or libations are required with this offering.

ולקח הכהן המשיח מדם הפר, “the High Priest is to take some of the blood of this bull;” the expression לקח both here and again in Exodus 24,6 [in the past tense, i.e. ויקח] teach us that just as in Exodus Moses used a bowl in which the blood was placed, so the High Priest here is also supposed to place that blood in a bowl first.

וטבל, והזה, “the priest will dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle;” every sprinkling of the blood has to be preceded by the priest dipping his finger in the blood;

אצבעו, “his finger”; this finger is mentioned both here and again in Leviticus 14,16. Just as in that verse the right index finger is the one to be used, so here too he is to perform this procedure with the index finger of his right hand. (Sifra)

שבע פעמים, “seven times.” He is to count seven times during this procedure, not the way the High Priest does during the sprinkling on the Day of Atonement, (Sifra, here) where he counted:; “one, plus seven.”

שבע פעמים, seven times.” The number seven occurs on many separate occasions repeatedly in matters involving heaven. There are seven constellations of major stars, we speak of seven layers of the heavens, and the earth, correspondingly, is referred to by seven different names, i.e: ,ארץ, אדמה, ארקא, חרבה, יבשה, תבל and חלד There are seven deserts mentioned in the Torah; there are seven “worlds,” (i.e. G-d created seven universes, and destroys six of them) compare (Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer) the week has seven days, we count seven years of the sh’mittah cycle, seven times seven for the Jubilee cycle. The candlestick in the Temple had seven lamps. Bileam, the sorcerer, built seven different altars. (Compare more on this in Avot de Rabbi Natan, chapter 37.)

על קרנות מזבח הקטורת הסמים לפני ה, “on the horns of the altar of sweet fragrances, in front of the Lord.” This does not mean that the priest is standing before the Lord, as he is standing in front of that altar when he sprinkles, and both the altar and the dividing curtain separate him from the Holy Ark in the Holy of Holies.

כאשר יורם, “as it is lifted off;” Rashi explains that the Torah had to spell out the “heaving” of the fat pieces of the High Priest’s sin offering in order that we learn from this that the same procedure also had to be performed in the case of the ox that was a peace offering. (Leviticus 3,3-10) Why did also the same procedure have to be spelled out again in verse 20 of our chapter instead of the Torah simply writing: “as in that instance?” What was different here from there? How could we make a legal comparison that had not been spelled out from a verse in which it had itself not been spelled out, i.e. seeing that in verse 20 the Torah only writes: “as he had done, etc.,” without saying what he had done in that other instance? According to our author rule number three out of 13 rules of how to interpret the written Torah, by Rabbi Yishmael, does not apply when the Torah deals with the subject of קדשים, offerings presented in the sacred precincts of the Temple.

כאשר יורם משור זבח השלמים, “as it is taken off the ox of the sacrifice of peace offerings;” the reason why the Torah used this example to compare this offering to, is to teach that it too is instrumental in restoring peace between Israel and G-d, as opposed to comparing it to peace offerings consisting of sheep, which are brought on the Sabbath and in a state of uncleanliness, just like communal offerings, as in Leviticus 23,19.

על ראשו ועל כרעיו, “with its head and its legs.”

וקרבו ופרשו, “as well as its entrails and its excrement.” This teaches us that the animal is not skinned but is burned completely.

והוציא את כל הפר, “he is to remove the entire bull, etc.” this teaches that he has to do so before the animal has been cut up into pieces; in other words: the head with the legs need to be cut up of this animal outside the sacred precincts.

אשר נשיא יחטא, “when the secular head of the nation commits an inadvertent sin;” the construction אשר נשיא יחטא, instead of: נשיא אשר יחטא, also occurs in Esther 6,8: ואשר נתן כתר מלכות על ראשו, where we would have expected the sequence of וכתר מלכות אשר נתן בראשו, “and the crown of the Kingdom which had been placed on his head.”

במקום אשר ישחט את העולה, “at the same place as he has to slaughter the burntoffering.” This was done in order not to embarrass a sinner, so that the people would think he is presenting a burnt offering.

על קרנות מזבח העולה, “on the horns (corners) of the altar for burnt offerings.” When either the High Priest or the community offers a sacrifice (sin offering), the blood for the atonement through these sacrifices is considered before the Almighty as if it had been offered inside the Sanctuary and having been sprinkled on the dividing curtain and on the golden altar. By the same token, the sins for which atonement had been sought may be perceived as if they had been cast out even beyond the three Camps of the Israelite nation, all according to the severity of the sin to be atoned for. If either the secular head of the people or another person find themselves in the same position, seeing that they are not so highly ranking individuals do not bother to offer the required sacrifice and do not consider either the blood of it or its entrails etc, the blood of their sacrifices is offered on the altar in the courtyard of the Temple, and the meat of these sacrifices may be consumed. (based on B’chor shor end of Vayikra)

ואשם, “and he has become guilty;” he found out himself that he had committed an inadvertent sin.

או הודע אליו, “or it had been brought to his attention;”