We come now to chapter 1, mishnah 5 - the last mishnah in the chapter, and the last one dealing with the par helem davar of the community. The basic question the mishnah addresses is: who brings this offering?
The Torah presents the offering as one brought by the congregation, as it says: "Vehikrivu hakahal par ben bakar lechatas" - and the congregation shall offer a young bull as a sin offering. And who is that congregation? There are three possibilities before us:
The Great Sanhedrin: the authorized representatives of the congregation, the ones who issued the mistaken ruling and unwittingly led the people astray - they are the ones who bring the bull, and only a single bull. This is the view of Rabbi Meir.
The tribes: according to Rabbi Yehudah, "congregation" refers to each and every one of the tribes - a single tribe of Israel is called a congregation in its own right, and therefore each tribe brings a par helem davar, so that under ordinary circumstances twelve bulls are brought.
The tribes and the Sanhedrin together: according to Rabbi Shimon, every tribe that sinned brings a bull of its own, and in addition the Sanhedrin brings a bull for the mistaken ruling that went out from them.
The halachah follows Rabbi Yehudah - surprising as that may be - and therefore, under ordinary circumstances, should this ever occur, twelve bulls of helem davar would be brought.
When is the bull brought - two kinds of majority:
The bull is brought when the majority of the people acted on the mistaken ruling. That majority can be reached in two ways, since each tribe stands on its own apart from the head count of the Jewish people as a whole (much like the electoral college system, in which each state stands on its own):
A majority of the population: a majority of the individuals of Israel.
A majority of the tribes: a majority of the twelve tribes.
And the one need not also constitute a majority of the other. For example: twelve tribes (and for this purpose Ephraim and Menasheh count as a single tribe), with a thousand people in each tribe - twelve thousand in all. If 6,001 Jews, scattered among the tribes, committed the transgression, that is slightly more than half the total, and the obligation of par helem davar applies. Alternatively, if seven tribes committed the transgression - seven being one more than half of twelve - the obligation applies here as well. And when we say seven tribes, we mean the majority of each tribe, since a majority is treated as the whole: 501 people in each of the seven tribes, 3,507 people in all out of twelve thousand. That is not a majority of the people, but it is a majority of the tribes.
A third introduction: a ruling in idolatry:
The par helem davar comes for a mistaken ruling that the people acted upon, a ruling that permitted something whose intentional violation carries kares. But a separate rule applies when the transgression in question is idolatry. The passage of the par helem davar of the community appears in Vayikra 4, while in Bamidbar 15 there is a second passage, in the context of idolatry: "Ve'asu chol ha'edah par ben bakar echad le'olah" - and the whole assembly shall offer one young bull as a burnt offering, and in addition "use'ir izim echad lechatas" - and one male goat as a sin offering. In other words, instead of a single bull brought as a sin offering, a bull and a goat are brought: the bull as a burnt offering, and the goat as a sin offering for idolatry.
The first part of the mishnah:
"Horu beis din" - the Great Court in Jerusalem issued a ruling that a certain matter is permitted, when in fact it is forbidden, and afterward they retracted; and in the meantime the majority of the people acted on the mistaken ruling. Ordinarily each and every person would be obligated in his own fixed sin offering, but here "ve'asu kol hakahal" - the whole congregation did it, that is, the majority of the population, whether all twelve thousand or a majority of them, even just 6,001 - and therefore "mevi'in par" - they bring a bull: the Sanhedrin brings a par helem davar of the community to atone for the sin of them all, and no individual brings a fixed sin offering, and no private sin offering is brought for that sin at all.
As a parenthetical remark, the Mishnah adds: "U'va'avodah zarah mevi'in par v'sa'ir" - if the sin was one of idolatry, a bull and a goat are brought, as explained above. "Divrei Rabbi Meir" - one bull for the communal par helem davar, and it is brought by the Sanhedrin.
"Rabbi Yehudah omer: shneim asar shevatim mevi'in shneim asar parim" - Rabbi Yehudah disagrees and holds that "congregation" refers to individual tribes, and therefore each one of the twelve tribes brings a bull of its own, twelve bulls in all. And parenthetically: "u'va'avodah zarah mevi'in shneim asar parim u'shneim asar se'irim". The main point: each tribe brings its own.
"Rabbi Shimon omer: shloshah asar parim, u'va'avodah zarah shloshah asar parim u'shloshah asar se'irim" - this is the third opinion: a bull and a goat for each and every tribe, and an additional bull and goat for the court, for its own atonement. These are the three opinions, and the halachah follows Rabbi Yehudah - twelve bulls for a communal par helem davar.
The second part - a majority of the tribes:
The first case dealt with a majority of the population by head count. Now the Mishnah moves to the second possibility: "Horu beis din v'asu shivah shevatim o rubban" - the Great Sanhedrin issued the ruling, and seven of the twelve tribes acted upon it, and even a majority of each one of those seven.
According to the first opinion, "mevi'in par, u'va'avodah zarah mevi'in par v'sa'ir" - the Sanhedrin brings one bull on behalf of everyone, since we have here a majority of the nation by virtue of a majority of the tribes. This is Rabbi Meir's approach, and according to him there is no difference between a majority by head count and a majority of tribes: one bull, or a bull and a goat, brought by the Sanhedrin.
"Rabbi Yehudah omer: shivah shevatim shechatu mevi'in shivah parim" - each one of the seven tribes that transgressed brings a bull of its own. "U'she'ar shevatim shelo chatu mevi'in al yedeihen par" - even the five tribes that did not commit the sin bring a bull, each one of them, a total of five additional bulls (and some have the text "par par", and so too in Rashi - a separate bull for each one). "She'af eilu shelo chatu mevi'in al yedei hachot'in" - for Rabbi Yehudah derives that even the tribes that did not sin bring on behalf of the sinners, in order to achieve atonement on a national level for all of Israel.
At first glance this is puzzling: if in the end twelve bulls are brought, one for each tribe, why did the Mishnah not use this simple formulation, and instead divide between seven bulls and five that are brought in addition?
One suggestion: the five bring "al yedeihen", that is, for the atonement of the seven that sinned. Had the Mishnah said "twelve bulls", it would have implied that each tribe brings for its own transgression, and once again the matter would not concern the other tribes at all - each one looks after itself and does its own part. The practical difference is this: had the seven tribes refused for some reason to bring their bull, the five would not have been obligated to bring, since their offering is directed toward the atonement of the sinners, and if the latter are not being atoned for, what point would there be in the five bringing on their behalf?
"Rabbi Shimon omer: shmonah parim" - this is the third opinion: seven from the tribes that sinned, each one of them bringing a bull for helem davar, and in addition the court brings one. The halachah in both of these parts follows Rabbi Yehudah: in every case where the remaining conditions for bringing a par helem davar are met, in practice twelve bulls are always brought, one from each and every tribe.
The third part - a ruling of a tribal court:
In the judicial system that the Torah established, every city in Israel was required to have a court, and every tribe had its own high court - not the Great Sanhedrin, but a small Sanhedrin of twenty three. Since Rabbi Yehudah holds that the "congregation" in the verse refers to a single tribe, we must clarify: if the high court of a tribe issued the mistaken ruling, and the people of that tribe acted upon it, does an obligation of a par helem davar apply on the tribal level alone?
"Horu beis din shel echad min ha'shevatim ve'asah oso shevet al pihen" - one of the Sanhedrins of a single tribe issued a ruling, and the members of that tribe acted according to their beis din's ruling, but the ruling was mistaken and the beis din retracted it. "Oso shevet hu chayav u'she'ar kol ha'shevatim peturin" - in Rabbi Yehudah's view, the obligation to bring a par he'elem davar falls on that tribe alone, and all the others are exempt.
"Va'chachamim omrim: ein chayavin ela al hora'as beis din ha'gadol bilvad" - the Sages disagree and hold that a par he'elem davar applies only on the national level. Therefore, only a ruling issued by the nation's highest court, the Great Sanhedrin of seventy-one, obligates a par he'elem davar, and not a ruling of the local high court of a single tribe. "She'ne'emar: 'Im kol adas Yisrael yishgu'" - the congregation of all Israel, and not the congregation of that one tribe alone. The halachah follows the Sages: the obligation applies only in a national situation, on the strength of a ruling of the Great Sanhedrin.
To illustrate:
Let us suppose, hypothetically, that the Beis HaMikdash has been rebuilt and there are twelve tribes, among them the tribe of Yehudah, which is far larger than all the others: out of fifty million Jews, ten million belong to Yehudah. The tribe of Yehudah acted on a mistaken ruling and they all desecrated Shabbos, and afterward the matter came to light and they are required to bring a sin offering. According to Rabbi Yehudah, how many bulls of he'elem davar are brought?
The answer depends on the source of the ruling. If the tribe of Yehudah acted on a ruling of the Great Sanhedrin, this is a national problem, and since they are ten million out of fifty million and they are the majority, they bring a par he'elem davar, and so do the other eleven tribes - a total of twelve bulls, one from the tribe of Yehudah and eleven to atone for them as well. But if this was a ruling of the high court of the tribe of Yehudah alone, then according to Rabbi Yehudah they bring one par he'elem davar and the other tribes are not required to bring anything - except that in practice, a ruling of a local tribal Sanhedrin does not obligate at all, and in such a scenario there is no par he'elem davar.