Horayot הוריות

The shortest tractate of Nezikin. It concerns the case where the great Sanhedrin issued a mistaken ruling and the people acted on it. The one who obeyed is not the guilty party: the court brings the offering. The error of the anointed high priest and the error of the nasi are treated separately.

The tractate ends with a ladder of precedence—who is saved first and to whom one yields—and then turns it over: a learned mamzer goes before an ignorant high priest. Knowledge is set above descent, plainly and without qualification.

Order: Nezikin. There is Gemara in both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud.