We are continuing our study of Tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 4, Mishnah 3, and our discussion of the functioning of a small Sanhedrin - a court of twenty-three judges. This Mishnah deals with the physical arrangement of the judges' seating.
"Sanhedrin hayetah kechatzi goren agulah":
The twenty-three judges would sit in judgment on stools in the shape of a semicircle: the greatest of the judges in the middle, as we learned, and on both sides of him sat those lesser than him in descending order, until the twenty-second and twenty-third judges sat at the far ends, at the edges of the semicircle.
A "goren" is a threshing floor - a large, open, circular area where an ox would walk in a circle pulling a threshing board that threshes the wheat and separates the kernels from the chaff. The seating of the judges was done like a half of this circular shape, namely in a semicircle.
The reason for this is explained in the Mishnah: "kedei sheyihyu ro'in zeh et zeh" - so that each one of the judges would be able to see all of his colleagues.
The Judges' Scribes:
"Ushenei sofrei hadayanim omedin lifneihem, echad miyamin ve'echad mismol" - in addition to the judges, there were two scribes present, sort of like stenographers, whose job was to record everything said in the court. They stood at the ends: one to the right and one to the left. "Vechotevin divrei hamezakkin vedivrei hamechayyevin" - they recorded the arguments raised for acquittal and the arguments raised for conviction. It must be remembered that we are dealing here with capital cases, a trial that could result in the death penalty.
According to the approach of the Bartenura, and this is also the opinion of the Rambam, one of the two scribes would write all the arguments for acquittal, and the second all the arguments for conviction.
The Opinion of Rabbi Yehudah:
"Rabbi Yehudah omer: shloshah" - in his opinion, a third scribe was required, and the three of them divided the work:
The first - writes the words of those who acquit, the arguments for acquittal.
The second - writes the words of those who convict, the arguments for conviction.
The third - writes the words of those who acquit and the words of those who convict, meaning everything: both the arguments for acquittal and the arguments for conviction.
Two Ways of Explaining the Dispute:
The approach of Rashi: The dispute revolves around preventing errors. According to the Tanna Kamma, there are only two scribes, and both of them write everything, so that their records can be compared to each other to prevent mistakes. Rabbi Yehudah adds a third scribe to lighten the load: two of them each write only one side's arguments and focus on it, making their work more precise, and the third writes both sides' arguments for proofreading and correcting errors.
The approach of the Rambam, as the Bartenura also explains: According to Rabbi Yehudah, indeed one person writes both sides' arguments, and the other two each write one side. As a result, there are two copies of the arguments for acquittal and two copies of the arguments for conviction, similar to the concept of two witnesses.
In practical halachah, following the view of the Rambam, there are only two scribes: one writes the arguments for acquittal and one writes the arguments for conviction.
In summary: In this Mishnah, we learned about the seating arrangement of a minor Sanhedrin - like a semicircular threshing floor, so that the judges can see one another, with the greatest of the judges in the middle and the rest in descending order until the edges of the semicircle. We also discussed the role of the judges' scribes, the dispute between the Tanna Kamma and Rabbi Yehudah regarding their number and the division of their work, and the two ways of explaining this dispute - the approach of Rashi, which focuses on correcting errors, and the approach of the Rambam and the Bartenura, which focuses on duplicate copies.