On yesterday’s daf, we learned that dice players, pigeon flyers, merchants who sell sabbatical year produce and those who lend money with interest are all disqualified as judges. Today, the Gemara discusses whether these individuals can ever sufficiently repent of their misdeeds to be reinstated. But first, we learn of another category barred from judging: the dishonest butcher.
There was a certain slaughterer about whom it was discovered that an animal with a wound that would have caused it to die within 12 months emerged from his possession. Rav Nahman disqualified him and removed him from his position as a slaughterer.
In a story that could have been ripped from today’s headlines, a kosher butcher discovers that some of his stock is not kosher. But rather than eat the cost, he sells it anyway, passing it off as kosher meat. Rav Nahman both bars him from testifying (which would also disqualify him from acting as a judge) and bans him from continuing to work as a slaughterer.
But then, the disgraced butcher embarks on a visible path to repentance:
The slaughterer subsequently went and grew his fingernails and his hair. Rav Nahman thought to deem him fit. Rava said to Rav Nahman: Perhaps he is employing artifice.
The butcher grows his hair and his nails as a sign of his remorse. Is that enough to reinstate his eligibility to judge? Rav Nahman thinks so, but Rava thinks he could be faking it. So what is to be done? The Gemara explores a third option:
Rather, what is his remedy? It is in accordance Rav Idi bar Avin, as Rav Idi bar Avin says: One who is suspected of selling non-kosher meat has no remedy until he goes to a locale where they do not recognize him and returns a lost item of substantial value, or removes his own non-kosher meat of significant value from his possession.
According to Rav Idi bar Avin, the only way forward is for the butcher to move to another town and conduct himself in an exemplary (and costly) fashion — either by returning a pricey lost item to its owner or by dumping the treyf meat at his own expense.
And what about the others who have been disqualified: gamblers, usurers, pigeon racers and sellers of sabbatical year produce? Is there any coming back for them? The Gemara takes each in turn:
And when is (the gambler’s) repentance accepted? Once they break their dice and repent of them completely, where they do not do this even for nothing.
One who lends with interest is referring to both the lender and the borrower. And when is their repentance accepted? Once they tear their (promissory) notes and repent of them completely, and they do not lend (with interest) even to a gentile.
And those who fly pigeons … when is their repentance accepted? Once they break their fixtures and repent completely, where they do not do this even in the wilderness.
Merchants of the sabbatical year is referring to those who do business with the produce of the sabbatical year. And when is their repentance accepted? Once another sabbatical year occurs and they refrain.
The common denominator of all of these remedies is that the individuals must stop their disqualifying activities completely, even if they don’t benefit financially from them: no gambling just for fun, no flying pigeons even in the woods, no lending at interest even to non-Jews. The sabbatical year merchant must wait for a full seven-year cycle to pass and then refrain from dealing with forbidden produce during the next sabbatical year.
As Maimonides will famously write 1,000 years later, true repentance only comes when one has the opportunity to sin again and refrains from doing so (Hilchot Teshuva 2:1). Only then are those that sinned previously deemed worthy of placing judgment on others.
Read all of Sanhedrin 25 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on January 11, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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