24:
We come now to the last element in the tripartite statement attributed to Yehoshu'a ben-Peraĥyah: "give every man the benefit of the doubt". There are at least two ways in which this recommendation can be understood; the first is judicial and the other is general.
25:
If we were to give a literal translation of the Hebrew it would be something like "judge every person in the scale of innocence" (innocent as opposed to guilty). There are two terms in this phrase that suggest that the author might have a judicial frame of reference here. They are the term 'judge' and the term 'innocent'. When we studied Tractate Sanhedrin [Sanhedrin 061] we noted that the Hebrew root used here not only means to judge but also to discuss:
Our sages have taught: one who judges his fellow man favourably will himself be judged favourably. A man once left Upper Galilee and worked for three years for a certain householder in the south. Then, just before Yom Kippur he said, "Give me my wage so that I can go and feed my wife and son". The householder said, "I have no money." So the worker asked for animals instead. "I have no animals to give you." The worker said, "In that case, give me land." "I have no land to give you." "Give me household utensils, then." "I have none."
[The worker, of course, would know that his boss had cash, produce, land and chattels.]
The worker slung his knapsack on his back and went home very upset. After Sukkot the householder took the worker's wage together with three asses laden with goodies (one with food, the second with drink and the third with all kinds of sweets) and set off for the worker's home. After they had refreshed themselves the householder gave the worker his wages.
He then said, "When you asked me to give you your wages and I told you that I had no money what did you think?" The worker responded, "I thought that maybe you had a sudden business deal and you used all your spare cash for that." "And when you asked for animals and I said that I had no animals to give you what did you think?" "I thought that maybe you had hired them out to someone." "And when you asked me for land and I told you that I had none what did you think of me?" The worker replied, "I thought that maybe you had rented your land to someone." The householder asked, "And when you asked me for produce?" "I thought that maybe it was not yet tithed." "And when I told you that I did not have household chattels?" "I thought that you had possibly made a donation of all your goods to heaven."
The householder exclaimed, "By heaven that was exactly what happened! I had vowed all my property as charity on behalf of my son Hyrkanos who could not study Torah, and when I approached the sages in the south they released me from all my vows. And now, just as you judged me favourably may God judge you favourably."
In Avot034 I mentioned the fact that there is in existence a coin which dates from the reign of Alexander Yannai:
on one side the legend in Greek reads "King Alexander"; on the obverse side, however, the legend, in ancient Hebrew letters, reads "King Yonatan".
Jordan Wosnik writes:
I was wondering if you could comment on the Hebrew script displayed on the face of the coin minted during Simon's 'reign'. At what stage did the Hebrew alphabet as we know it today finally become entrenched? It was my understanding that it "came back" with the returning exiles in the 400-500s BCE. Was it not yet in common use by Simon's time?
I respond:
The Hebrew alphabet is, in fact, not Hebrew at all, but the Aramaic alphabet and the sages were fully aware of this. We discussed this in passing when we studied Tractate Sanhedrin; check there in the discussion. The Aramaic script was not introduced by the returning exiles (6th-5th century BCE). Jews outside Israel – in southern Egypt, for example – began using the Aramaic alphabet as early as the 4th century BCE, but it started to permeate gradually into Eretz-Israel only during the 2nd century BCE. However, official documents and inscriptions on coinage continued to be written in the 'old script' even as late as the 2nd century CE: Bar-Kokhba's coins (132-135 CE) are inscribed this way, though his letters were written in the Aramaic alphabet. Also, Tefillin used by his soldiers were written in the Aramaic alphabet – the one we use today.
