When Rashi uses the synonym method he does not explain the meaning of a word but rather the distinction between two similar words both of whose meanings we already know.

The following Hebrew words all refer to sins.
• Pay-Shin-Aleph, Peshah, rebellious sin
• Ayin-Vav-Nun, Avon, willful sin
• Cheth-Teth-Aleph, Chayt, negligent sin.

In our article Peshat and Derash: A New Intuitive and Logical Approach, which can be found on the world-wide-web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rashi.pdf we have advocated punchy translations of Biblical verses as a means of presenting Rashi comments. The following translation of verse Lv16-16a embeds the Rashi translation Chayt means negligent sin And he shall make atonement on the holy place, and from the ritual impurities of the children of Israel, and from their transgressions [pesha], for all their negligent sins [chayth]; and so shall he do for the tent of meeting, that dwelleth with them in the midst of their uncleannesses.

Advanced Rashi: Rashi goes a step further and explains typical examples of rebellious and negligent sin connected with ritual impurity.
• A typical rebellious sin connected with ritual impurity would be defiantly walking into the Temple grounds while ritually impure
• A typical negligent sin connected with ritual impurity would be walking into the Temple (or dealing with Temple sacrifices) while ritually impure and not being aware of this impurity either at the beginning or end.
As we have explained several times in this list it is a mistake to see Rashi as exhausting the meaning of the verse with this example; rather the proper perspective is that Rashi is giving a typical example which illustrates the general principle. Such a reading of Rashi is mature and deep. Technically Rashi does not explicitly mention the willful-negligent distinction and similarly Rashi does not explicitly mention the rebellious sin examples; all Rashi does is mention the negligent ritual impurity examples. However to properly understand Rashi we have provided a contrastive rebellious example as well as explained the synonym distinction which underlies the Rashi example.