Daf 10a

If an annointed Kohen sins he brings as an atonement a bullock, and if a King sins he brings a he-goat, as opposed to an ordinary person, who brings a ewe or a she-goat. The Mishnah, which starts at the end of 9a, discusses the halachah in various cases where the Kohen or the King were removed from their elevated status.

The Mishnah says - An annointed Kohen who sinned and afterwards was removed from his annointed status, and so too a King who sinned and afterwards was removed from his kingly status, the annointed Kohen brings a bullock and the King brings a he-goat. The Mishnah continues - An annointed Kohen who was removed from his annointed status and afterwards sinned, and so too a King who was removed from his kingly status and afterwards sinned, the annointed Kohen brings a bullock, and the King brings like an ordinary person.

The gemara asks on the Mishnah - Now that it was necessary to teach the that a Kohen who was removed from his status and afterwards sinned brings a bullock, the case where he sinned and afterwards was removed from his status needs to be taught?! (The first case can easily be learned from the second). The gemara answers, that because it taught with regards to the King, that when he was removed from his status and afterwards sinned he brings like an ordinary person, because of this it was necessary to teach that with regard to the Kohen who sinned and afterwards was removed from his status, that he brings a bullock.

Rashi explains, in his first explanation, that the superfluous clause about the Kohen was needed for the sake of the halachah concerning the King. That since it taught with regard to the King that when he sinned after he was removed from his status he brings like an ordinary person, I might have thought that also when he sinned before he was removed he also brings like an ordinary person. Therefore it taught in the beginning of the Mishnah that in that case he brings like a King. We will soon fully explain this Rashi.

But first we will point out that construction of the Mishnah appears to be unnecessarily clumsy, especially in light of the rule that one should always try to teach in as brief a manner as possible. One would have thought that it would have been better to write the Mishnah like this - An annointed Kohen who sinned and afterwards was removed from his annointed status brings a bullock. And a King who sinned and afterwards was removed from his kingly status brings a he-goat. And the same with the second part of the Mishnah. This is clearer, briefer and leaves out the apparently unnecessary words "so too". Also, the answer of the gemara according to Rashi's explanation seems so obvious, since this is the normal style of teaching everywhere in the Mishnayos, that it is hard to understand what was the question of the gemara in the first place.

But the explanation of the Mishnah and the gemara, is that the original Mishnah, before the period of the Tannaim, was the following case only - "An annointed Kohen who was removed from his annointed status and afterwards sinned, brings a bullock". Later, the Tannaim agreed upon, and decided to add, the halachah concerning a King who sinned after he was removed from his kingly status.

Now, the simplest way to add this teaching would have been to continue on from the original Mishnah - "But a King who was removed...brings like an ordinary person". However, it is a rule that whenever an addition is made to the original Mishnah, an indication of this must be made in the new version of the Mishnah. There are several ways that they did this, varying according to the type of addition, and the suitability to the original teaching. One of the ways is to use the word וכן - "and so too", and this way was deemed to be the most suitable here.

But of course it would have been impossible to continue on from the original Mishnah "And so too a King...", because the laws are not similar. The only possibilty was to insert the clause concerning the King into the orignal Mishnah  - "An annointed Kohen who was removed...and afterwards sinned, and so too a King who was removed...and afterwards sinned" - because these two statements are similar. But this interruption necessitates repeating the words 'the annointed Kohen' and 'the King' - "the annointed Kohen brings a bullock, and the King brings like an ordinary person". Thus, we now understand that the Mishnah's clumsy and lengthy construction was out of neccesity to indicate that the clause concerning the King was an addition.

And now we understand the gemara's question on the Mishnah. That is, since there is no indication that the beginning of the Mishnah is not part of the original Mishnah, and on the contrary, the clause concerning the King is clearly indicated as being an addition in both the beginning and the end of the Mishnah, thus it appeared to the gemara that the original Mishnah had two clauses about the Kohen, the first of which is clearly superfluous. Thus the gemara's question is quite justified.

And the gemara's answer is also now clear, that once the clause about the king who sinned after he was removed from his kingly status needed to be added, it was necessary to also add the case where he sinned before he was removed, since there the halachah is different. The way they did this was to write the superfluous teaching about the Kohen at the beginning of the Mishnah, in order that they could 'add' to it the first clause about the King.   כפתור ופרח