Sanhedrin 2: How Many Judges Should Hear Each Case?

Our first Mishna in this new masechet explains how many judges are required for different proceedings.  The number increases with the severity of the punishment possible.  Three judges are required to hear most transgressions.  Twenty-three judges are required for more serious crimes or for crimes committed in centres without enough people to merit a Sanhedrin.  A full court, or a Sanhedrin of 71 judges is required to hear any case involving capital punishment.  The Gemara then explores why three judges would be required in some cases and not in others.

Three judges are required to hear cases regarding:

• monetary law
• property damage
• half the damage (where an ox gored twice but the owner did not warn and then the ox gored another animal again)
• payment of double the principal (a their caught stealing)
• payment of four or five times the principal (a their who slaughtered or sold a stolen ox or lamb)
• one who rapes/seduces a virgin girl and pays her father 50 shekels
• Rabbi Meir: one who defames (falsely claims that his wife was not a virgin, bringing false witnesses, and then pays her father 100 silver shekels and receives lashes)*
• cases rendering one to receive lashes**
• determining the intercalation of the month and the year***
• laying of the hands by Sages****
• breaking the heifer's neck when one is found murdered without a suspect****
• chalitza (where a widow without children marries her brother-in-law)
• the refusal (of a girl to marry the man her mother/brother forced her to be with as a child)
• Valuation for redemption of a fourth-year sapling or second tithe produce*****
• Valuation of consecrated property*****
• Valuations of movable property*****

Two acts are judged by nine judges and one priest.  These are the valuation of land and the valuation of a person for the sake of making a vow.

The following cases are judges by twenty-three judges.  This is based on biblical requirements of a 10 person court (Numbers 35:24-25), at least 10 people in a congregation, and two more to ensure that "you shall not follow a multitude to convict (Ex 23:2), which adds two people, and a third to ensure that there is an odd number:

• an animal that copulated with a person
• an animal that was the object of bestiality
• an ox that is stoned because it killed a person, for the ox and its owner should be put to death (Exodus 21:29)
• a wolf, lion, bear, leopard, cheetah or snake that killed a person******

Finally, a number of cases are judged by 71 judges, just as Moshe and his 70 chosen elders were the original Sanhedrin (Numbers 11:16):

• when an entire tribe has sinned
• when a false prophet is declared
• when a high priest transgresses a prohibition that is punishable by death
• when a King brings the nation to war when that war was not mandated by Torah nor was it in self-defence
• when the people wish to extend Jerusalem or the Temple courtyards
• when a city is determined to be idolatrous and must be destroyed*******

* the Rabbis say that a defamer is judged by twenty three judges because it could become capital law as he accused her of adultery and she could have received the death penalty.  The same argument holds with his false witnesses

** Rabbi Yishmael asserts that twenty-three judges are required to hear these cases

*** Some rabbis say that we begin with three judges who consult with five judges, concluding with seven judges

**** Rabbi Yehuda says that five judges are required

*****Rabbi Yehuda states that one of the three judges must be a priest

****** in such a case, the person who puts the animal to death has done a mitzvah, and the animal is declared dead by 23 judges

******* only if everyone is idolatrous and it is not close to Eretz Israel and three adjoining cities are not idolatrous together