Why the Rabbis Used the Blind and the Lame to Answer Antoninus

Hebraic Literature, the 1901 English anthology of Jewish texts, preserves two related passages from Sanhedrin 91a. The Roman emperor Antoninus's question to the Rabbi about how body and soul could be jointly judged when each could plead innocence. And the famous rabbinic parable of the blind man and the lame man in the king's orchard.

Antoninus and the Joint Judgment Problem

The first passage records Antoninus's philosophical challenge to Rabbi Judah the Prince. The emperor poses a problem about the day of judgment.

The body could plead innocence by saying that the soul did the sinning. Since the soul left me, I have lain in the grave as still as a stone. The soul could plead innocence by saying that the body did the sinning. Since I left the body, I have flitted in the air as innocent as a bird.

Each component, taken on its own, has a legitimate-sounding defense. The body did not act after the soul left. The soul did not act before it entered. Both pleas, on the surface, appear to make conviction impossible.

The rabbi replied with a parable. The parable, the rabbi tells Antoninus, will demonstrate why the joint defense fails. The exemplum then turns to the parable itself.

The Blind Man and the Lame Man in the Orchard

The second passage records the parable in detail. A king had an orchard of fine figs. He prized the fruit highly. To prevent theft, he placed two watchers in the orchard. To prevent the watchers from being tempted by the fruit themselves, he chose one watcher who was blind and one watcher who was lame.

The lame watcher could see the fruit but could not reach it. The blind watcher could move but could not see the targets. Either watcher alone would have been incapable of theft. Together, theft was a structural impossibility, the king believed.

The watchers conspired. The lame man said to the blind man, I see very fine figs. Carry me to the tree, that we may both partake of them. The blind man carried the lame man. The lame man directed. They ate the fruit.

The king returned. He found the fruit gone. He confronted the watchers. The lame man, he challenged, could not have walked to the tree. The blind man, he challenged, could not have seen the tree. Each watcher tried to defend himself by pointing at the limitation that should have prevented his individual guilt.

The king saw through it. He caused the lame man to mount on the back of the blind man and judged them both as one.

What the Parable Answered

The teaching is structural. The body alone cannot sin without the soul to direct. The soul alone cannot sin without the body to enact. Together they enable sin precisely as the blind and lame together enabled theft. Each could honestly say I could not have done this alone. The honest plea does not, in the king's reckoning or in the divine reckoning, dissolve the joint responsibility.

The body will be reunited with the soul at the day of judgment, the rabbi explains to Antoninus, and the two will be judged as one. The joint judgment is the only judgment that fits the joint nature of the sin. Either component judged alone would be unjust. Both judged together produces the appropriate accountability.

Why the Tradition Preserved the Exchange

Hebraic Literature preserves both the exchange and the parable because the pair has been the standard rabbinic answer to the resurrection question across centuries. The rabbinic literature kept this teaching alive because every generation of Jewish readers encountered, in their own communities, the philosophical objection Antoninus raised. The parable's answer has been the working response. The watchers conspired. The king saw through the defense. The day of judgment uses the same logic.