Our Gemara on Amud Beis relates a dispute about the total number of blood sprinklings from the bull and goat during the Yom Kippur service—43, 47, or 48—in the various sections of the sanctuary and the altar. The difference depends on whether the High Priest mixes the blood of the bull and goat before placing it on the corners of the inner altar, or places each separately. The additional 48th sprinkling depends on whether the pouring of the blood on the base of the altar is considered an essential part of the service.

What is the significance of these numbers? The Maaseh Rokeach (Seder Moed, Yoma) explains:

The Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Offerings for Unintentional Transgressions 1:4) lists a total of 43 chattas offerings brought for unintentional sins that incur kares, consisting of a fixed sacrifice (meaning the same form applies to rich and poor alike). There are five additional chattas offerings that allow for a sliding scale—sometimes animal, sometimes bird, and sometimes even flour—such as those for defiling the Temple or sacrificial foods, a metzora, false oaths, and making an oath to refuse knowledge to testimony (Kerisos 10a).

Thus, 43 corresponds to the standard chattas offerings, 48 to the standard plus the five sliding-scale offerings, and 47 represents 48 minus one, when the two forms of impurity (defiling sacrificial food and the Temple) are considered one. Whether 43, 47, or 48, the Yom Kippur service symbolically provides atonement for all forms of kares.

We may still wonder why some allow atonement for the sliding-scale chattas and others not. Perhaps since the Torah already provides flexibility based on means, it hints at even subtler, non-specified paths of atonement that those particular sins are more eligible for. Or, the other way around, since these sins are in some way more severe, they need specific atonement and it is more pressing; therefore, the Torah made it available on a sliding scale. In either case, studying the five examples shows a commonality in three of them of a desecration of speech (metzora = l’shon hora, false oaths, and refusing to testify). The other two have to do with a different desanctification, in a more concrete manner, by defiling the Temple or holy food.

Another possibility is to consider that a person of lesser financial means may be more subject to these violations and therefore deserves more accommodations. Why is he more susceptible? Cleanliness and awareness of surroundings is a luxury that impoverished people cannot necessarily manage as well, making them susceptible to ritual impurity. The Gemara Shabbos (62b) warns: “One who is negligent regarding ritual washing will come to poverty.” Here we have an intersection of purity and cleanliness that is related to poverty. Inability to honor one’s word can also be a byproduct of the stress of poverty. The lack of financial security makes a person more approval-seeking and compliant, which could lead to gossip and/or falseness.

Returning to the original subject of the 43, 47, and 48, we may say that the difference between 47 and 48 depends on how one conceptualizes sin: are defilements merely variations of one trespass, or distinct categories? (This is similar to the discussion on the top of Zevachim 44a, where the Gemara considers a defiled body with pure food to be equivalent to defiled food and a pure body.) By way of metaphor, is trespassing on someone’s property versus sitting on their possessions in public without permission one kind of violation or two?

Though subtle, such distinctions have meaning. Proper atonement requires not only remorse but an awareness of what was transgressed in order to properly repair the transgression’s effects and the characterological deficiencies they represent.