Sanhedrin 128

נושא: Sanhedrin

Sanhedrin 128

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

זָקֵן מַמְרֵא עַל פִּי בֵית דִּין, שֶׁנֶאֱמַר "כִּי יִפָּלֵא מִמְּךָ דָבָר לַמִּשְׁפָּט" וְגוֹ'. שְׁלשָׁה בָתֵּי דִינִין הָיוּ שָׁם; אֶחָד יוֹשֵׁב עַל פֶּתַח הַר הַבַּיִת, וְאֶחָד יוֹשֵׁב עַל פֶּתַח הָעֲזָרָה, וְאֶחָד יוֹשֵׁב בְּלִשְׁכַּת הַגָּזִית. בָּאִים לָזֶה שֶׁעַל פֶּתַח הַר הַבַּיִת, וְאוֹמֵר "כָּךְ דָּרַשְׁתִּי וְכָךְ דָּרְשׁוּ חֲבֵרַי, כָּךְ לִמַּדְתִּי וְכָךְ לִמְּדוּ חֲבֵרָי". אִם שָׁמְעוּ אוֹמְרִים לָהֶם; וְאִם לָאו בָּאִין לָהֶן לְאוֹתָן שֶׁעַל פֶּתַח הָעֲזָרָה, וְאוֹמֵר "כָּךְ דָּרַשְׁתִּי וְכָךְ דָרְשׁוּ חֲבֵרַי כָּךְ לִמַדְתִּי וְכָךְ לִמְדוּ חֲבֵרָי". אִם שָׁמְעוּ אוֹמְרִים לָהֶם; וְאִם לָאו, אֵלּוּ וָאֵלּוּ בָּאִים לְבֵית דִּין הַגָּדוֹל שֶׁבְּלִשְׁכַּת הַגָּזִית, שֶׁמִּמֶּנּוּ יוֹצֵאת תּוֹרָה לְכָל יִשְׂרָאֵל, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר "מִן הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר ה'". חָזַר לְעִירוֹ וְשָׁנָה וְלִמֵּד כְּדֶרֶךְ שֶׁהָיָה לָמֵד, פָּטוּר; וְאִם הוֹרָה לַעֲשׂוֹת, חַיָּב, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר "וְהָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה בְזָדוֹן": אֵינוֹ חַיָּב עַד שֶׁיּוֹרֶה לַעֲשׂוֹת. תַּלְמִיד שֶׁהוֹרָה לַעֲשׂוֹת פָּטוּר – נִמְצָא חֻמְרוֹ קֻלּוֹ:

The insubordinate sage: as it is said, "Should there be a matter in judgment that is beyond your ken" etc. There were there three Batei-Din: one met at the entrance to the Temple Mount, one met at the entrance to the Courtyard, and one met in the Gazit Hall. They would come before the one at the entrance to the Temple Mount and [the accused sage] would say, "This is how I interpreted [the Torah] and this is how my colleagues interpreted it; this is what I taught and this is what they taught." If [the judges] had heard [the Halakhah in this matter] they would say so, otherwise they would come before the Bet-Din that sat at the entrance to the Courtyard; [the accused sage] would say, "This is how I interpreted and this is how my colleagues interpreted; this is what I taught and this is what they taught." If [these judges] had heard [the Halakhah in this matter] they would say so, otherwise they would all come before the Bet-Din that met in the Gazit Hall, from which Torah proceeds to all Israel – as it is said, "… from the place which God shall choose…". If [the accused sage] returns to his town and continues to teach according to his former opinion, he is not culpable; but if he gives practical instruction he is culpable – as it is said, "… the man who shall act brazenly …" – thus he is culpable only when he gives formal instruction to act [in accordance with his own interpretation]. A student who gives practical instruction is not culpable, thus his more severe offence actually eases his situation.

5:
After the Great Sanhedrin has passed down its judgment on the case brought before it everyone is expected to accept their view as "Halakhah". However, our mishnah carefully distinguishes between the practical aspect of Halakhah and the intellectual aspects of arriving at Halakhah. Thus, if the sage whose refusal to accept the view of the majority was the cause of all these developments continues in his defiance of the majority views he turns himself thereby into a "recalcitrant sage" and may be charged as being guilty of this capital offence. But this is only the case if he is approached by enquirers and gives them a Psak Halakhah in accordance with his own view, in defiance of the majority view, sustained by the Great Sanhedrin. He is certainly entitled to tell the enquirers that the Halakhah is according to the majority view but at the same time to explain to them that his own private opinion is different. Thus he is permitted to disagree with the majority, provided that he does not create two contradictory Halakhot on the same issue. The purpose of our mishnah is not to stifle freedom of thought, but only to preserve Halakhic unity.

6:
It is all very well for some experts to hold that driving on the left hand side of the road is less accident prone, while other experts hold the same as regards driving on the right. As long as the matter is purely academic everyone is entitled to his own opinion. What would be disastrous would be for each driver to make his own decision on which side of the road he prefers to drive, basing himself on one of the two contradictory views! That is not freedom of thought, that is a recipe for legalized carnage. However, from the moment of the demise of the Sanhedrin (during 5th century CE) it became impossible to impose one single Halakhah on all Israel, and gradually each sage became a law unto himself. Thus, today, we not only have Halakhah as understood by Conservative Poskim [decisors] and Orthodox Poskim, but within the movements themselves we have great Halakhic diversity. (Just think of the Halakhic implications of Mitnagdim versus Ĥassidim, or orthodoxy versus ultra-orthodoxy.) Conservative Judaism has gone a certain distance in order to circumscribe the Halakhic freedom of the individual rabbi: there is a Law Committee whose decisions are binding; if the Law Committee authorizes more than one approach the rabbi my select that which meets with his personal approval. There are even certain Halakhic standards whose breach will oust the offending rabbi from the assembly of his or her colleagues.

7:
All that we have said applies only to a qualified sage. It is forbidden for a Talmid Ĥakham (a sage's student) to offer an Halakhic ruling. It is obviously all the more odious for that same student to offer an Halakhic ruling that is in opposition to the standard laid down by the Great Sanhedrin. However, since he is only s student and not a qualified sage, he cannot be charged with being a "recalcitrant sage". Thus, curiously, "his more severe offence actually eases his situation".

Larry Yudelson has sent me the following message, which I pass on "as is":

Regarding the mishna in the previous perek, a week or two ago, about kanaim pogim bo [the right of zealots to take the law into their own hands]: I prepared a dvar Torah on the relevant Gemara, which I subsequently published on
my web site. It's a close reading of the text, prepared in the spirit of Conservative Judaism (and in part in the dorm of the seminary, where I was visiting / learning with a friend in smicha).

In our last Shiur I wrote that it was one of the main tasks of the Talmid Ĥakham, the student of the sage, to pass on, unaltered, his teacher's teaching.

Aryeh Abramovitz comments:

Just a tidbit on the subject of Talmid Ĥakham: I heard from Prof. A. Shenan that the proper expression is Talmidei Ĥakhamim (plural) and therefore Talmid Ĥakhamim (singular). The corrupted form of Talmid Ĥakham resulted in a mistaken expansion of the abbreviation tav-ĥet. It also then becomes clear that Ĥakham refers to the sage(s) – as you translated – and not to the student, as became the popular etymology.

I respond:

In our last Shiur I brought a long quotation from the Tosefta. For the sake of brevity I omitted the conclusion of that text, which is apposite in our present situation. The continuation of that passage from the Tosefta is as follows:

When the students of Hillel and Shammai increased, because they had not studied as carefully as they should at the feet of their teachers, disagreements began to multiply in Israel.

Gently and affectionately, I level the same charge at Aryeh! I am certain that he must have misheard or misunderstood what Professor Shinan said, since a very simple check on the sources reveals the following statistics: the phrase Talmid Ĥakham (just like that) occurs six times in the Mishnah, thirteen times in the Tosefta, one hundred and seventeen times in the Babylonian Talmud, twenty-nine times in the Talmud of Eretz-Israel and four times in the Halakhic Midrashim. That's a grand total of one hundred and eighty-nine cases in Tannaïtic and Amoraïc literature. That's an awful lot of "corruptions"! However, of course, Aryeh is quite correct that the original meaning of the term Talmid Ĥakham is "a sage's student".

Also in our last Shiur I wrote: that on Shabbat and Festivals they would only convene in the Bet Midrash on the Temple Mount.

Juan-Carlos Kiel asks:

How would the Beit Din record their decisions on Shabbat and Festivals? Were the scribes permitted to write the Court's decisions on holydays?

I respond:

Not at all! Juan-Carlos' misunderstanding was caused by my bad phrasing. What I meant to convey was that the Supreme Court would convene on Shabbat and Festivals so that if an emergency query should arise there would be someone there to answer it. They were not in "full session". Thus my hapless phrase "would only convene" was meant to imply that all they did was convene, and nothing else.