Sanhedrin 048

4:
The Reisha [first section] of our mishnah presents two views: that of Rabbi Me'ir and that of the rest of the sages. Both parties agree that in cases where the defendant is being sued for monies owing the case may be heard before a court of arbitration consisting of three lay judges. What they disagree on is how that court is to be composed. A court of arbitration is not a permanent institution, and such a panel would have to be created every time a claimant and a defendant decide to go to arbitration. Rabbi Me'ir says that each party, the claimant and the defendant, may appoint one arbitrator each, and they have to agree between themselves as to the third member of the panel. The reasoning behind this arrangement is, according to the Gemara [Sanhedrin 23a] in order that both litigants may feel assured of a fair trial: "When each one of them appoints his own judge and they both appoint the third judge by mutual agreement – the judgment will be true".

5:
The Sages see this arrangement as possibly leading to the very miscarriages of justice that Rabbi Me'ir would prevent For, they reason in the Gemara [Sanhedrin 23a], all a defendant would have to do would be to reject every person suggested by the claimant as the third judge and thus the case would be stalled indefinitely and never come to arbitration. The very reason that these lay Courts [Bet Din shel Hedyotot] were recognized at all was to make it as easy as possible for creditors whose debtors were defaulting – or even denying the loan in some way – to regain their money [Sanhedrin 3a]. This problem is avoided when it is the two judges who appoint the third member of the panel.

6:
This seems so obvious that the Gemara [Sanhedrin 23a] proceeds to re-interpret the disagreement between Rabbi Me'ir and the Sages: the Sages hold that the two judges appointed by the claimant and the defendant have the absolute right to appoint the third judge as they best see fit; whereas Rabbi Me'ir would reserve to the claimant and the defendant the right to consent to the judges' decision. The halakhah in both cases is according to the view and understanding of the Sages: it is the two judges who appoint the third member of the panel and their decision is final and may not be contested by the litigants [Shulĥan Arukh, Ĥoshen Mishpat 13:1].

To be continued.

Lawrence Charap writes that Jacob Neusner writes …it is a well-established principle in the legal (halakhic) documents that a rule that is not attributed to a named authority stands for all authority, and ordinarily sets the norm. One bearing a name may well be, and mostly is, schismatic (with the proviso that certain names carry within themselves signals as to normative status). I was struck by the strange layout of the three statement's in the most recent posted mishna. Is there a historical reason for laying out a statement in the Mishna, then saying, "This is Rabbi Me'ir's position; the Sages do not follow it…" in this way? It seems like a puzzling way to lay out the Sages' position.

I respond:

By its very nature a study group such as ours has people joining at various times and they may well have missed something that has already been said – and sometimes has been said often! However, these technical rules can not be repeated too much, so I beg the patience of RMSG old-timers when I explain the situation once again.

The Mishnah was originally intended to be a compilation that could be learned and studied only orally. That is why Rabbi Yehudah the President of the Sanhedrin who compiled the Mishnah used certain technical formulations to permit the student to draw conclusions without them having to be specifically stated, thus lengthening that material to be conned by rote. One such technical rule is as follows:

When a mishnah is stated anonymously [Stam Mishnah] the view stated in it represents the undisputed halakhah. When a view is stated anonymously in a mishnah [Tanna Kamma or Sages] and is then contested by a named rabbi (as is the case in our present mishnah) this indicates that the accepted Halakhah is not according to the view of the named rabbi or rabbis.

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Jacob Adler has sent the following observation concerning theories of revelation:

About theories of revelation – anthropocentric and theocentric – I feel inclined toward a combination of both. God's will is obviously a very different kind of thing than human will. (If we are to believe RaMBaM, we can have no positive conception at all of what God's will is like.) But still, when we are striving to learn Torah, we find that sometimes we are in a very receptive state and sometimes much less so. I am inclined to say that this receptive state is the way God reaches down to us – by putting us in a condition where we can more easily perceive God's messages.

I respond (briefly):

I do not think that when we, as individuals, study Torah that we are vouchsafed revelation! Revelation is something quite distinct from study. Revelation involves the initiation of a text, a message, a command; study can only be of an already existent and accepted text. However, to clarify: I do think that there is a difference between a theocentric conception of revelation and an anthropocentric one – and, as I have said, it has nothing to do with the study of the texts and their interpretation. The difference lies in how we understand communication between man and God to be effected. The traditional view of revelation is theocentric: God, in some manner, inspires people with His direct word. The anthropocentric conception would see man – individually and collectively – as attempting to comprehend the Divine will. In either case, when the texts which purport to come from God are accepted by the collective conscience of the Sages and the people as being of Divine origin they do, ipso facto, become normative and binding.

I hope this helps.