אָמַר לוֹ, "נֶאֱמָן עָלַי אַבָּא", "נֶאֱמָן עָלַי אָבִיךָ", "נֶאֱמָנִין עָלַי שְׁלשָׁה רוֹעֵי בָקָר" – רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר, יָכוֹל לַחֲזוֹר בּוֹ; וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים, אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לַחֲזוֹר בּוֹ. הָיָה חַיָּב לַחֲבֵרוֹ שְׁבוּעָה וְאָמַר לוֹ, "דּוֹר לִי בְחַיֵּי רֹאשְׁךָ", רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר, יָכוֹל לַחֲזוֹר בּוֹ; וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים, אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לַחֲזוֹר בּוֹ:
If he says "My father is acceptable to me" or "Your father is acceptable to me" or "Three shepherds are acceptable to me" – Rabbi Me'ir is of the opinion that he can retract, while the sages are of the opinion that he can not. If one is required to swear on oath and the other party says "Swear upon your very life" – Rabbi Me'ir is of the opinion that he may retract, while the sages are of the opinion that he may not.
1:
Our mishnah divides into two sections:
Reisha [first section] and
Seifa [last section]. We shall address the
Reisha first.
2:
The Reisha of our mishnah is concerned with the process of composing a Bet Din shel Hedyotot – a court of arbitration composed of three lay people to judge a case involving the recuperation of a monetary loss. The previous mishnah set out the procedure whereby the claimant and the defendant each appoint one of the arbitrators (who then appoint the third). In such simple (!) cases, it could very well be that the claimant, for example, is so certain of his case that in an act of bravado asserts that he would even permit the defendant to appoint her father as one of the arbitrators! Or, for similar reasons, she the defendant, might wish to impress her opponent with the certainty of her case that she claims that she would accept three shepherds as the arbitrators. (Shepherds were notorious for their illiteracy and their inability to verbalize easily. Before his life was for ever changed by his beloved Rachel, Akiva was a shepherd, and had to go to school with his own son in order to learn his letters; and when he later was the most illustrious sage of his time he admitted that 'when I was an ignoramus if I had come across one of the sages I would have bitten him like a donkey' [Pesaĥim 49b].)
3:
The Gemara [Sanhedrin 24a] discusses the circumstances in which the prescriptions of our mishnah apply. According to Resh Lakish [Amora, 3rd century CE, Eretz-Israel] the disagreement between Rabbi Me'ir and the rest of the sages is concerned with when the party is permitted to retract their rash statement. He says that Rabbi Me'ir and the sages are in conflict as regards a retraction before the verdict, but they all agree that after the verdict neither of the parties may retract anything that they said previously. The great mentor, teacher and colleague of Resh Lakish, Rabbi Yoĥanan, takes the exact opposite view – that the bone of contention between Rabbi Me'ir and the sages is whether a retraction is valid after the verdict has been given. The way Rabbi Yoĥanan reads our mishnah, Rabbi Me'ir says that the party making the rash statement may demand a retrial before more qualified arbitrators, whereas the sages deny him this right.
4:
The Gemara [Sanhedrin 24b] reports that
Rav Naĥman bar Rav Ĥisda sent a message to Rav Naĥman bar Ya'akov: Teach us: is the argument about before the verdict or after the verdict? He responded: The argument is about after the verdict and the Halakhah follows the sages. Rav Ashi says [that you've got the whole thing muddled!] The message he sent was: is the argument about a situation [previously discussed by the Gemara] where the claimant says 'You won't have to pay me' [if these partial or ignorant arbitrators find in my favour], or is the argument about a situation where the defendant says 'I'll waive payment' [if these partial or ignorant arbitrators find in my favour]? And the response was that the argument is about whether the claimant can retract and the Halakhah follows the sages. This was the version in [the Yeshiva in] Sura; in Pumbedita they had the following version: From Rav's Yeshiva [in Sura] they sent the following message to Shemu'el [in Pumbedita]: Teach us: What is the Halakhah regarding a situation in which the two parties concluded a formal agreement before the verdict [that the arbitrators or witnesses were accepted by both parties]? He responded: After a formal agreement [Kinyan] nothing can be done at all.
The Halakhah is that even a rash statement of sheer bravado concerning the acceptability of the arbitrators (or of witnesses) cannot be retracted even before the verdict if the parties concluded a formal agreement in this matter, and under no circumstances after the verdict.
5:
We mentioned Resh Lakish in passing. In the discussion in the Gemara [Sanhedrin 24a] on the previous mishnah Resh Lakish took exception to Rabbi Me'ir's view in the mishnah – expressed nearly two hundred years previously. He exclaimed, "How could his holy mouth have uttered such a view?!" This exclamation results in the following passage in the Gemara, which I quote because of its perceived relevance to our own situation today. The Gemara says: "See how they loved each other!" – for even though Resh Lakish thinks that Rabbi Me'ir is completely wrong, he still refers to the statement as having come from a "holy mouth", in other words he refers to Rabbi Me'ir with loving respect even when contradicting his view. The Gemara then backs this up with another story. Rabbi Yehudah the President of the Sanhedrin was the greatest and most illustrious scholar of his time: it was he who compiled the Mishnah that we are studying. During a discussion on a particular point of Halakhah concerned with Shabbat, one of the sages present said that his late father, also a recognized Halakhist, had permitted what Rabbi now sought to prohibit. Rabbi immediately withdrew his opinion because "the venerable old man has already decided the matter". The Gemara now comments again, "See how they loved [respected] each other: if Rabbi Yosé [the venerable old man] were still alive he would be sitting at Rabbi's feet [and would not venture to contradict the great sage]" and yet Rabbi nevertheless canceled his own opinion in deference. The Gemara now refers to a midrash on a verse [Zechariah 11:7]: the sages in Eretz-Israel behave with respect towards each other in Halakhic matters, whereas the sages in Babylon wound and bruise each other [figuratively].
Would that this were still true of the sages of Eretz-Israel.
6:
To return to our mishnah. The Seifa is concerned with a situation parallel to the Reisha. Oaths, as understood in western courts, are not part of the Halakhic juridical system. Witnesses do not swear to tell the truth: for the Torah – one of the Ten Commandments – requires one to avoid swearing falsely. If the judges were to require the witness to swear to telling the truth and he then perjured himself, the judges would become "accessories before the fact", because the sin of perjury was only committed because of their requirement. (There was a different method, as we shall see in a later chapter, for trying to ensure a just testimony.) There is, however, one situation in which the claimant can be challenged to take an oath: when the claimant has no conclusive proof that the defendant owes him money, he may be required to swear that his claim is honest. This oath is usually administered upon a Sefer Torah, on the pious assumption that no person would dare to perjure themselves under such circumstances (!). We can now understand the Seifa of our mishnah: if a defendant challenges the claimant to swear, not on a Sefer Torah, but on his very life (i.e. may God strike me dead if I lie) and he consents, he may not retract that consent.
