The Third Pair: Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shatach

The third pair falls in the stormiest Hasmonean years: the reign of Alexander Jannaeus and then of his widow Salome Alexandra, sister of Shimon ben Shatach. Under Jannaeus the sages were persecuted; under Salome they returned — and returned to work that shows in their sayings: both were given the ordering of the court.

Yehudah ben Tabbai said: "Do not make yourself like those who prepare arguments for the judges. When the litigants stand before you, let them both be guilty in your eyes; and when they leave you, let them both be innocent in your eyes — since they have accepted the judgement." The first part is against the judge who coaches one side. The second is against carrying the verdict home: the trial is over, and the man is innocent again.

Shimon ben Shatach said: "Examine the witnesses thoroughly, and be careful with your words, lest through them they learn to lie." This is not advice on rhetoric but a rule of procedure: an imprecise question suggests its answer, and a suggested answer in a capital case costs a life.

His caution was not theoretical. The Mishnah and Gemara preserve something else as well: he hanged eighty women accused of witchcraft in Ashkelon in one day. The Talmud cites this as an emergency measure rather than a precedent: by ordinary law not even two capital cases are tried in one day, and the act was taken "as the hour required."

Tradition also credits him with rebuilding the schools and the order of children's instruction. The irony is that the man who stands in Avot for caution in speech is also remembered for the harshest single act of the era; tradition kept both, and smoothed over neither.