Fogel explores the tractate Horayot (Decisions), page by page, and offers a modern commentary with doses of humor and comparative examples. The central focus concerns how to adjudicate cases when the governing body, the Sanhedrin, incorrectly designates certain practices legal and people follow the erroneous advice as a result.

Joshua A. Fogel is Canada Research Chair in the Department of History at York University. His previous work has focused primarily on the cultural relations between China and Japan over the past two centuries. His most recent works include Daily Reflections on Idolatry: Reading Tractate Avodah Zarah of the Babylonian Talmud (Hamilton Books, 2012); Japanese Historiography and the Gold Seal of 57 C.E.: Relic, Text, Object, Fake (Brill, 2013); Articulating the Sinosphere: Sino-Japanese Relations in Space and Time (Harvard University Press, 2009); and Czernowitz at 100: The First Yiddish Language Conference in Historical Perspective (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), co-edited with Kalman Weiser.

Author's Introduction
Chapter One: The Court Ruled (dapim 2a-6b)
Chapter Two: The Anointed Priest Ruled (dapim 6b-9b)
Chapter Three: An Anointed Priest Sinned (dapim 9b-14a)
Glossary of Selected Terms
Index of Tannaim and Amoraim
Index to Biblical and Rabbinic References