“If a person sins through ignorance against any of the commandments of Hashem concerning things which ought not to be done, and do against any of them.” (Vayikra 4:2)

In the parsha of Vayikra, we learn about one’s obligation to bring offerings in various situations. The one with which people are most familiar is the korban chatas. We understand that although the person didn’t intend to sin, the infraction was still committed and repentance is necessary (The secular world mimics this with the distinction between manslaughter and murder). If you ask, “Why does one need to be punished if the infraction was unintentional?” The well-known answer is that although the intent is part of every sin, the act itself is the mechanism which causes the need to repent.

My Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Chaim Bressler, likened a sin “beshogag” to one who took a beverage from the refrigerator and drank it with relish. When his friend saw what he did, he warned him, “You must rush to the hospital, because that drink was lethal!” to which he countered, “I am not concerned because I assumed the drink was safe, so my ingestion of poison was ‘beshogag’!” We all understand that the thought does not make any difference to the body if the drink was poison! So too, a person who sinned, though he did it beshogag, must undergo a strict repentance regimen, similar to one who did the sin with intent.

In the parsha we also learn about a korban asham that is brought to protect those who have sinned and are not even aware of their sin. For the sin itself, even without recognizing the mistake, damages the individual.

On the subject of beshogag, I read a moving allegory by Rav Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi:

There was a bochur in yeshiva who was conscientious and diligent, always arriving on time for davening and learning sessions. After a long stay in yeshiva, he contracted a disease that caused him to be bedridden. His temperature rose and he was unable to even move from his bed. After some time in bed, the sickness was brought under control, and one day in the middle of the morning he appeared in the Beis Medrash and made his way to his seat. Shortly after he began learning, I went up to the bochur and said to him, “Why are you late? Don’t you know that seder started two hours ago?!” The bochur could not believe this question. I saw the surprise in his face, and knew what he was thinking, “The Rosh Yeshiva knows that I am always on time and that I was just very sick. It took me a great deal of effort to get here – so why is the Rosh Yeshiva judging me so harshly?” I responded “You have a record of always being on time, Today, even though you may have a valid excuse, you came late and I see that you survived. This has made coming late a possible reality in your life. You better eradicate it now for otherwise it may fester and grow. This is why I came down hard on you.” Almost as if this was a prophecy, this is exactly what happened: Within a short time, the boy began arriving late to yeshiva.

The lesson of the korbon Chatos is that if you sinned, even by mistake, nevertheless you did the sin and survived! Without making new stringencies, your chances of transgressing again are much greater.

Let us go back to my Rosh Yeshiva’s allegory: The person called Poison Control and after getting all the information, they responded, “You’ll be sick in bed for a few days. Don’t worry about it.” What will happen the next time you have that kind of poison in the refrigerator? Will you put a big warning label on it, or will you say “What’s the big deal?” I think it’s obvious that we still should be extra careful.

We are now about to begin the daunting task of cleaning every speck of chometz in the house for Pesach. What would happen if on Pesach itself we found a small amount of chometz, and the Rabbi ruled, “Don’t worry about it, as the amount of chometz is insignificant”? Do you think that next year you would be able to clean with the same amount of gusto? I think that if we are all intellectually honest, we would admit that it would be difficult for us to do so. But if those few crumbs are really OK, then why are we so uncompromising when cleaning? The answer is that they are really NOT OK. The crumbs are poison, just not enough to be considered a sin.

Certainly, when we have the opportunity to be preemptively careful in order to not have any chometz at all in our houses on Pesach, we should realize that the back-breaking work we do is well worth the effort.

Chag kasher v’somayach!