from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת ויקרא. In פרשת ויקרא we learn about קרבנות, the sacrifices in the Beis Hamikdash. One of them is קרבן חטאת. If you do an aveirah, a sin, b'shogeg, unintentionally, you have to bring a קרבן חטאת. But that's only by an aveirah that had you done it intentionally, במזיד, you would get the punishment of kares, that means a person dies at a young age, etcetera, etcetera, then if you do it b'shogeg, you have to bring a קרבן חטאת. Then the Torah talks about another קרבן, which is a קרבן אשם תלוי. אשם תלוי is brought when you maybe did an עבירה בשוגג that the punishment במזיד would have been kares. And the example is given: for instance, there are two pieces of fats on the table. Kosher fats is called שומן and non-kosher fats is called חלב. The punishment for eating חלב, if you eat it במזיד, is kares. So if you eat it b'shogeg, then you have to bring a קרבן חטאת. But what happens you're not sure you ate it, you ate חלב? For instance, there were two pieces laying on the table, you thought they were both שומן, kosher fats, and you ate one, and then you found out that one of the two was חלב, the non-kosher one, but you're not even sure that that's the one you ate. So here it's a safek, a doubt, maybe you did an aveirah that is במזיד כרת, but you did it b'shogeg. So maybe you did an עבירה בשוגג, and for that you have to bring a קרבן called אשם תלוי. And the example that I just gave is the example that the Chazal gave, and Rashi in Chumash brings the example of the two pieces: one is חלב, one is שומן, you thought they were both שומן, both kosher fats, and you ate one, later you found out that one of them was חלב, was the non-kosher fats, but you're not even sure that you ate the טריפה one, maybe you ate the kosher one. So it's a ספק עבירה that you did b'shogeg, maybe you did an עבירה בשוגג, you bring a קרבן אשם תלוי. The question is, why is the example given from fats, that two types of fats, kosher fats and non-kosher fats? Now the reason we picked that example is because chelev is an איסור כרת, חלב is something that you get kares if you eat it b'mezid, that's why it's a good example. But that's not the only example of eating food that's kares. For instance, if you eat chametz on Pesach, you're also חייב כרת if you eat b'mezid. So you could have given the same example: there were two pieces laying around, you thought they were both not chametz, you ate one of them, you didn't mean to eat חמץ, חס ושלום, but you ate one of them, then you found out that one of them was chametz, but you're not even sure you ate that one, you'd also have to bring אשם תלוי. So why is the example picked of chelev and shuman, of kosher fats and non-kosher fats? And the

Rebbe explains as follows: it says in many sefarim that to from a certain angle doing an עבירה בשוגג, doing aveirah by mistake, unintentionally, has a certain chumra, something even worse than doing an עבירה במזיד. When you do an עבירה במזיד, intentionally, it's a terrible thing, but it's a one-time thing. That means your yetzer hara got the best of you, you had a taavah to eat something treif or whatever other thing that you did, and you stumbled. The yetzer hara got the best of you, that's a terrible thing. But when you do an עבירה בשוגג, that shows to a certain degree that this is where you're at, that's your מהות. If it came out by mistake, then it means that's where you're noteh, that's where you're tilting to. Maybe it's similar to the concept of a Freudian slip. If you say something which you shouldn't have said b'mezid, you intend it, so it's wrong, if you shouldn't have said it, it's wrong. But the yetzer hara got the best of you. But if it comes out by itself, that means that's where you're at. So doing an עבירה בשוגג has a certain aspect worse than b'mezid, meaning it shows your מהות, וואס דו האלטסט, what you're holding at. If there's a safek whether you did an עבירה בשוגג or not, so it's not really a safek whether in only in what you did, did you do the aveirah or not. It's a safek where you're at. Since shogeg means that shows that where you're at, where your enjoyment is, so it's a safek where your pleasure is, because an עבירה בשוגג shows that that's where you're at, that's where your pleasure is, that's where you are. And if you have a safek, a doubt whether you did עבירה בשוגג, so it's not a doubt whether you did the aveirah, which is true, but besides that it's also a doubt in where your מהות is, which in other words where your pleasure is. And that's why the example is given when it comes to אשם תלוי, when you did an עבירה בספק, a doubt maybe you did it b'shogeg, the example given is from fats.

Fats, we know, represents pleasure. We have a ra'ayah from the Gemara, the story of רבן יוחנן בן זכאי But we see there's a pasuk that says שמועה טובה תדשן עצם, when you hear good news and you feel good, you get pleasure, it makes your body grow. So, it shows where you are. Anyway, the bottom line is that pleasure represents your מהות. And that's the reason why the Chazal gave the example that what kind of fats fats you ate, did you eat kasher fats or non-kasher fats, because if there's a safek whether you did this עבירה בשוגג, the real safek is whether you have pleasure in something wrong or not. And that's why the Chazal picked this example to explain what's behind a safek in עבירה בשוגג. What's behind is not really just a safek whether you did the aveirah, you didn't do. The safek is ביי וואס האלטסטו, what your pleasure is in. Is the pleasure in kasher stuff, good things, or is chas v'shalom the pleasure in bad things? That's why we use the example maybe it's חלב, which is bad fats, טריפה fats, or maybe it's שומן, which is kasher fats.