Q&A: Judah ben Tabbai Took Upon Himself Not to Issue a Halakhic Ruling Except in Accordance with Shimon ben Shetach
Judah ben Tabbai Took Upon Himself Not to Issue a Halakhic Ruling Except in Accordance with Shimon ben Shetach
Question
Hello and blessings, Rabbi.
Instead of just referring you elsewhere, I’m quoting the sources for convenience, despite the length.
The Talmud in Makkot 5 cites the Tosefta Sanhedrin at the end of chapter 6 [the explanations below are based on Chazon Yechezkel there. https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=47523&st=&pgnum=209].
“Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai said: May I not see consolation if I did not kill a conspiring witness, in order to uproot from the hearts of the Boethusians what they used to say, namely, that the condemned person must actually have been killed first. Shimon ben Shetach said to him: May I not see consolation if you did not shed innocent blood. For the Torah says, ‘By the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall the dead one be put to death’—with witnesses there are two, and with conspiring witnesses there are two; just as the witnesses are two, so too the conspiring witnesses are two. At that moment Judah ben Tabbai took upon himself not to issue a halakhic ruling except in accordance with Shimon ben Shetach.”
That is, there are (at least) two conditions for making conspiring witnesses liable, and the Sages and the Sadducees disagreed about them:
A. If the condemned person was executed on the basis of their testimony and then they were exposed as conspiring witnesses, they are exempt—because the verse says “as he plotted,” and not “as he did.” But according to the Sadducees/Boethusians, דווקא if the condemned person was executed on their testimony and then they were exposed, they are liable.
B. If only one of them was exposed, both are exempt. But according to the Sadducees, whoever was exposed is liable.
Now there was a case where one conspiring witness was exposed before the condemned person was executed. According to the Sadducees he would be exempt because of condition A [though from the standpoint of law B he would be liable]. According to Jewish law (the Sages), he is exempt because of law B [though from the standpoint of law A he would be liable].
In this case, Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai wanted to reject the Sadducees’ law A, and therefore he killed the condemned witness (even though he was exempt because of law B).
Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach informed him that this does not uproot the Sadducees’ view, because killing him also goes against the Sages’ law (law B). [And therefore a Sadducee, too, could have killed this conspiring witness in order to reject the Sages’ law B, even though according to the Sadducees as well he is exempt because of law A.]
“At that moment Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai took upon himself that he would not issue rulings except before / in the presence of / in accordance with [the reading of the Talmud / Rashi / Tosefta respectively] Shimon ben Shetach.” And Rashi explains: in the presence of Shimon ben Shetach, so that if he erred, Shimon ben Shetach would correct him.
According to the reading “before/in the presence of,” it seems that Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach was an adviser. According to the reading “in accordance with,” it would seem that Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach was the decisor.
There are several things here that I’d like to understand. Maybe there’s a point here about the nature of halakhic decision-making, “these and those are both the words of the living God,” etc.:
1. Is Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai’s acceptance connected to the fact that in practice he actually killed the witness, or even if he had not killed him (but had only decided to do so, or had even sent the court’s agent and then retracted before the act was completed), would the conclusion—that he should refrain from ruling not in the presence of Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach—still stand? In other words, is there a rational conclusion here, or just some faint restriction because a mishap happened through him? [I assume it is a rational conclusion and depends only on Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai’s ruling, not on its execution. If so, then “he took it upon himself” means not that he did Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach a favor or kindness, but that the truth obligated him.]
2. What exactly did Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach add for Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai? On the face of it there are three possibilities. A. He taught him law B itself. B. The law was known, and he only added the claim that there is no uprooting of the Sadducees’ view here, since “fits on one point and contradicts on one point” applies both to the Sadducees and to the Sages. C. The law was known and the argument was known, and nevertheless Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai thought there was uprooting here, and Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach showed him by clear reasoning, etc., that the other decision is the correct one. Option A seems unlikely—that Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai (whether Nasi or Av Beit Din) did not know a law about conspiring witnesses, which was the very subject he was dealing with. Option B seems unlikely, because if the laws were known, the argument is obvious and natural. So option C is probably the explanation. Right?
3. Assuming option C is the explanation (that Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach “showed” Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai that sound judgment leans the other way), what shook Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai so much that he took this upon himself? An error in judgment sounds like something that happens every month. Does everyone who changes his mind about something between youth and old age stand up and start doubting all his opinions?
4. What does “he took upon himself” mean? If this was just a kind of self-imposed encouragement-vow—that as an extra precaution he would also hear Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach’s opinion (like, say, a present-day decisor who wouldn’t rule in Orach Chaim without checking the Mishnah Berurah)—it’s a bit strange, because even without this incident, wouldn’t Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai naturally seek out the opinion of the great authority opposing him and weigh it? But if he took upon himself to rule like Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach whenever they disagreed, then Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai himself has no authority at all, which is odd.
Answer
You did not formulate the dispute precisely. For our purposes, item 1 is about whether, when the condemned person was not killed, they kill the witness or not—not whether, when he was killed, they kill him or not (that is a different dispute, not relevant to this case).
In the plain sense, Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai did not kill an innocent person; he killed someone who was liable to death. Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach taught him law B, and therefore he understood that what he had done was wrong. Still, it requires examination why he says that he killed him in order to uproot the Sadducees’ view. He killed him because, in his opinion, the witness was liable to death. On the other hand, if he already knew that with one witness there is no exposure as conspiring witnesses, then what did Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach teach him? Perhaps there was some other exemption there that Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai waived—for example, that there was only one witness disproving them—and that would fit the language of the exposition they brought: “with witnesses there are two, and with conspiring witnesses there are two.” This still needs examination.
I did not understand the uncertainty whether Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach was an adviser or a decisor. Simply speaking, he took it upon himself not to rule without receiving Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach’s approval for his ruling. What is the difficulty here?
2. See my introduction and suggestion there.
3. See above.
4. There is nothing strange here. He saw that he had erred, and therefore he took it upon himself to rule only with Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach’s approval. A judge is not required to consult someone else even if that person is greater than he is.
Discussion on Answer
What do you mean that in the plain sense he killed him because he was liable to death and not in order to uproot their view, and therefore it needs examination why he said he killed him in order to uproot their view? Why not explain that he really did kill him for the reason he himself gave—to uproot their view—even though he wasn’t actually liable to death (the court may punish, as Chazon Yechezkel writes there).
And why wasn’t the witness liable to death even though he was exposed as a conspiring witness (and the defendant at the time had indeed been sentenced)? Because he was only one conspiring witness and not two. That is, two witnesses came, but only one of them was exposed. According to Jewish law both are exempt, while the Sadducees generally obligate the witness who was exposed (provided the defendant is executed). [More precisely, he discusses there some fine points based on the rule that if one witness is found invalid, the whole testimony is void.]
To explain that Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach expounded “two and two” and taught him the law itself, which Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai didn’t know, and Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai immediately accepted that to such an extent—that seems strange to me. But okay, I accept it. (If it was a law from tradition and Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai didn’t know it, that is much stranger still.)
[I didn’t fully follow your point about the wording of the dispute, and if it matters here I’d be happy for another explanation, and then I’ll presumably understand and rejoice.]
The question is what Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai would rule if he and Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach disagreed (that is, if Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach did not give his approval). If he would rule like Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach, then Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach is basically a supreme court of halakhic rulings, and in place of Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai you could just put a scarecrow there. After all, in order to approve, Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach would have to get into the thick of the issue and decide it from scratch, as it were. It’s not just administrative approval that no procedural flaw occurred, but a detailed examination of the substantive reasoning. That seems a bit odd to me. But I can accept it (in the sense that giving approval is easier than ruling from the outset, because Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai will usually say sensible things and convince Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach without Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach having to come up with the arguments himself). And within his autonomy, an autonomous person is entitled to place someone else over himself.
Shmuel A, thanks. Arukh LaNer writes that ordinarily the Av Beit Din (Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai) would not issue rulings without the Nasi (Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach), as stated in the Talmud in Chagigah 16b; and here Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai did not wait for Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach, but hurried before the Sadducees would leave, in order to uproot their view—and unfortunately he made a mistake. So he took it upon himself to return to being careful about the normal arrangement. Honestly, that seems to me a very reasonable explanation, many thanks. https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14412&st=&pgnum=19.
I’m not familiar with the book Avnei Shoham, and on HebrewBooks I didn’t find novellae on tractate Makkot.
So Arukh LaNer explained it like I did. Except that he explained that “to uproot the Sadducees’ view” refers only to the haste. He too agrees that Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai did not know the law that both witnesses must be exposed.
It seems Arukh LaNer raises the possibilities in both directions, like you, but in the end he explains Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai’s mistake in a strange way. He says that Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai knew the law that both must be exposed and knew that the witness was exempt. Rather, that same witness was also standing trial for a different capital offense, and apparently Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai had already concluded in his heart that he deserved death for that other offense. He therefore chose to judge him specifically on account of being a conspiring witness so that he could uproot the Sadducees’ view, who said not until the defendant is killed—and here the defendant had not yet died, and nevertheless Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai killed the conspiring witness. Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach replied that as long as the verdict had not been finalized, he was not liable to death at all (Gilyon HaShas to Makkot 5, etc.).
In this way Arukh LaNer gains that the witness was killed in order to uproot the Sadducees’ view (and that was the mistake, as Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach said), and also that Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai did not really kill a totally innocent person or bring injustice upon the righteous, since the man really was liable to death in this world. [When I came to ask, I only meant to understand what Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai took upon himself, but like any greedy questioner I got drawn into asking also a relatively technical detail—what exactly the mistake was.]
Perhaps I did not explain his words correctly. And because the letters are so worm-eaten there in the link, I’ll copy his wording with omissions.
“To uproot the Sadducees’ view.” This is difficult either way: if Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai knew the exposition that both witnesses must be exposed, how did he execute one witness? And if he did not know, why did he say that he killed him to uproot the Sadducees’ view, rather than because ‘you shall remove the evil from your midst,’ which is a positive commandment requiring the court to execute those liable to death?
One may answer based on what the Ritva asked: how could such an incident happen to that righteous man—does not Scripture say that no evil befalls the righteous? […] One may say that he was liable to a different court-imposed death, for example, witnesses came that he desecrated the Sabbath. If so, Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai could have judged him on that basis, but he chose to conclude his sentence on the basis of conspiring testimony in order to uproot the Sadducees’ view. Especially since exposure of conspiring witnesses requires public proclamation throughout Israel, and through this the matter would become publicized.
Nevertheless Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach said to him: ‘You shed innocent blood,’ since his verdict for Sabbath desecration had not yet been concluded […]
Thus one can answer this difficulty based on what we say in Chagigah 16b […] It is difficult: why did Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai, who was Av Beit Din, issue a ruling in the presence of the Nasi to kill a conspiring witness […] why did he not wait for the Nasi? Therefore one may say that certainly in ordinary cases Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai would wait for the Nasi; however, this happened in the presence of the Sadducees, and he feared they might leave and there would be no publicizing of the matter, and therefore he exerted himself to execute him immediately before the Nasi arrived.”
Avnei Shoham is on the Torah, Deuteronomy 19:19 [on the verse, “Then you shall do to him as he conspired to do to his brother; so shall you remove the evil from your midst”
See also Arukh LaNer and Avnei Shoham exactly on this topic [the latter seems forced to me, but maybe you’ll like it].