JUDAH B. ṬABBAI AND SIMEON B. SHEṬAḤ RECEIVED THE TRADITION FROM THE PRECEDING. JUDAH B. ṬABBAI SAID: ACT NOT AS THOSE THAT WOULD INFLUENCE THE JUDGES; AND WHEN THE SUITORS STAND BEFORE YOU LET THEM BE AS WRONGDOERS IN YOUR SIGHT, AND WHEN THEY HAVE DEPARTED LET THEM BE AS INNOCENT IN YOUR SIGHT, ONCE THEY HAVE ACCEPTED THE JUDGMENT.

ACT NOT AS THOSE THAT WOULD INFLUENCE THE JUDGES. What does this mean? It teaches that if you come to the House of Study and hear a ruling or a decision, be not hasty to dispute it, but sit and ask yourself, ‘Why did they say it? On what grounds did they arrive at their decision?’ Or if they stated a law, ask them first of all the fundamental principle of the law about which they were consulted.1The text is in disorder although the meaning is clear. A warning is issued against a scholar’s hasty criticism of a judge’s decision, and unwarranted interference with a sentence of the Court.When two suitors come before you to law, one poor and the other rich, do not say, ‘How can I declare the poor man innocent and the rich man guilty?’ or ‘How can I declare the rich man innocent and the poor man guilty?’ or ‘If I find against the poor man, he will become my enemy; and if I find in favour of the poor man, the rich man will become my enemy.’ Furthermore, do not say, ‘How dare I take the money from one and give it to the other?’ For the Torah declares, Ye shall not respect persons in judgment.2Deut. 1, 17.R. Meir used to say: What does Scripture intend by the words, Ye shall hear the small and the great alike?3ibid. It means that one suitor should not sit and the other stand; one should not speak all that he wishes and the other be told to be brief. R. Judah said: I have heard that if [the judges] desire both suitors to sit they may do so, and there is no objection to it. What is prohibited is for one to sit and the other to stand.4Cf. Shebu. 30a (Sonc. ed., p. 167).[Another interpretation:] What is meant by the small and the great alike? A minor law-suit should be as important to you as a major law-suit, a law-suit involving a peruṭah should be as important to you as one involving one hundred mina.5Cf. Sanh. 8a (Sonc. ed., p. 32).

He6In the parallel passage, Men. 109b (Sonc. ed., p. 678), the author of this statement is R. Joshua b. Peraḥiah. Here it might be attributed to Judah b. Ṭabbai, the author of the aphorism at the beginning of the chapter. used to say: If anyone had said to me before I occupied high office, ‘Assume that office’, I would go so far as to deprive him of his livelihood.7In Men. the reading is: ‘I would bind him and put him in front of a lion’. In both versions the threat is, of course, not meant to be taken seriously. But once I had assumed office, if anyone were to say to me, ‘Give it up’, I would pour a pot of boiling water on his head. For it is a hard thing to assume power, and hard as it is to assume power, it is harder to give it up. We find it so in the case of Saul; when he was asked to assume the regal dignity he hid himself, as it is stated, And the Lord answered: Behold, he hath hid himself among the baggage.81 Sam. 10, 22. But when he was told to surrender the crown, he pursued David to kill him.

SIMEON B. SHEṬAḤ SAID: EXAMINE THE WITNESSES THOROUGHLY; and when examining them BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR WORDS, lest through your words those who are listening may add falsehood to them: [a necessary precaution] on account of dishonest persons.