Sanhedrin 026
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BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
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אֵין דָּנִין לֹא אֶת הַשֵּׁבֶט וְלֹא אֶת נְבִיא הַשֶּׁקֶר וְלֹא אֶת כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל, אֶלָּא עַל פִּי בֵית דִּין שֶׁל שִׁבְעִים וְאֶחָד. וְאֵין מוֹצִיאִין לְמִלְחֶמֶת הָרְשׁוּת, אֶלָּא עַל פִּי בֵית דִּין שֶׁל שִׁבְעִים וְאֶחָד. אֵין מוֹסִיפִין עַל הָעִיר וְעַל הָעֲזָרוֹת, אֶלָּא עַל פִּי בֵית דִּין שֶׁל שִׁבְעִים וְאֶחָד. אֵין עוֹשִׂין סַנְהֶדְרָיוּת לַשְּׁבָטִים, אֶלָּא עַל פִּי בֵית דִּין שֶׁל שִׁבְעִים וְאֶחָד. אֵין עוֹשִׂין עִיר הַנִּדַּחַת, אֶלָּא עַל פִּי בֵית דִּין שֶׁל שִׁבְעִים וְאֶחָד. וְאֵין עוֹשִׂין עִיר הַנִּדַּחַת בַּסְּפָר, וְלֹא שָׁלשׁ, אֲבָל עוֹשִׂין אַחַת אוֹ שְׁתָּיִם:
Only the [Supreme] Court of Seventy-One may judge a tribe, a false prophet, or a High Priest. Only the Court of Seventy-One may declare a political war. Only the Court of Seventy-One may add to the City or the Courtyards. Only the Court of Seventy-One may appoint the courts [of Twenty-Three] for the tribes. Only the Court of Seventy-One may declare a township liable to extinction. Such a township may not be declared if [situated] on the border nor three such townships – but one or two is possible.
EXPLANATIONS (continued):
19: Our mishnah stipulates that only the Great Sanhedrin was authorized to try the case of a person accused of being a false prophet. We have also followed many of the tribulations of the prophet Jeremiah in order to discover the enormous difficulty that existed – for lay people and prophet alike – when trying to "prove" that one was a true prophet, or that someone else was a false prophet. 20: Jeremiah had been preaching his usual message in the Temple precincts, but his "usual" message was not one that the priests could agree with. Socially, Jeremiah taught that if Judean society in general did not start acting with greater moral and ethical identity with God's law it could not survive and the very Temple itself would be destroyed. The priestly caste held that God would never destroy His own house, therefore Judah was inviolate regardless of the behaviour of her citizens. Jeremiah's preaching on the occasion in question must have been similar to his preaching elsewhere.
Do you think you can rob, murder, fornicate, perjure yourselves… and just come and stand before Me in this House which bears My Name, and think that you are saved thereby in order to [continue doing] all these atrocities?! Has this House become then a den for reprobate wretches?… [7:9-10]
21:
But on that occasion Jeremiah's message had been further fortified by "proof". Basically he claimed that his message, that Jerusalem was doomed and that the Bet Mikdash would be destroyed, was not new, and that the people's trust in the Bet Mikdash as some kind of fetish, totem or magic charm was not justified by history.
For go now to My place that used to be in Shiloh, where I first caused My Name to reside, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. Now then, because you have done all these things – says God – and because even though I have spoken to you repeatedly and often but you have not listened, because I have called but you have not responded – therefore I shall do to this House upon which My Name is called and in which you place your trust, this place that I gave you and your ancestors, just as I did to Shiloh. And I shall cast you out just as I have already cast out all your brethren, the whole progeny of Ephraim. [Jeremiah 7:12-15]
22:
This was strong stuff! Jeremiah was in fact saying that God had already done what he (Jeremiah) threatened: the Tabernacle in Shiloh had been razed to the ground by the Philistines in the time of Samuel; but that was some 400 years previously. But less than a century ago God had wiped out the whole sister-kingdom of Israel (Ephraim) and had exiled the "lost ten tribes" from the Land of Israel, never to return. 23:
The priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah saying all these things in God's House. When Jeremiah had finished saying all that God had commanded him to tell the whole people, the priests, prophets and all the people arrested him saying, 'You must die! How can you prophesy in God's Name that this House shall become like Shiloh …?' Thus the whole people ganged up against Jeremiah in God's House. [26:7-9]
But, miracle of miracles, salvation was at hand. Some other members of the government (the opposition?) hurried from the royal palace to the bet Mikdash to defend Jeremiah and save him from a lynching. They managed to prevent the prophet's death by announcing that they – the ministers of the government – constituted a court of law and that Jeremiah must benefit from a just trial. The priests and prophets then formally accused Jeremiah before the court of the capital crime of being a false prophet. There was, they reasoned, no need to bring further evidence, because 'you have heard with your own ears' what he had to say – and what he had to say was palpably false nonsense! Jeremiah responded that he could not be a false prophet since it was God who had sent him 'to prophesy against this House and against this city everything that you have heard' and 'if you kill me you will be bringing [the shedding of] innocent blood upon your consciences'.
24: 25: |