daf bit: Sanhedrin 60

[cellio]

Blasphemy is a capital offense. Conviction for a capital offense requires careful testimony of two direct witnesses. This poses a problem, as they must testify to what exactly the person said. To minimize the damage, the court sent everybody out except for the witnesses and then told the first witness: tell us literally what he said. The witness did, and the judges tore their garments. The second witness then said "I heard this too" without repeating the testimony. (The mishna then says the third witness does likewise. I'm not sure where the third witness came from, as only two are required.)

The g'mara discusses tearing one's garments when hearing blasphemy. Rav Yehudah said in the name of Shmuel that one tears only when hearing a curse of the tetragramaton, but not when hearing other divine names. Rabbi Chiyya says that one who hears God's name in a blasphemous context today doesn't tear his garments, because if he did the garment would be torn to shreds. But who is R' Chiyya talking about? If we say that he hears this blasphemy from Jews, are Jews so irreverent as to frequently demean the name of God? No, he must be talking about hearing it from gentiles. But do gentiles know this specific name? No, if we're talking about gentiles it must be in regard to any name, and there'd be enough of that to leave one's garments in shreds. The g'mara concludes that nowadays one is not obligated to tear his garments when hearing the curse of a gentile and a curse using another name, but originally one was obligated to tear for both, contrary to what Shmuel says. (mishna 56a, g'mara 60a)

In case you're wondering (I did!) why the second witness doesn't tear his garment on hearing the first witness repeat the blasphemy, the g'mara says it's because he already tore his garment when he heard the original blasphemer. The judges, however, are hearing it for the first time.

Comments

[goljerp]

What happens if witness A thought they heard "$DivineName can go f*** $DivineName 's self" and witness B thought they heard something different (but equally blasphemous)? (Probably, knowing the Rabbis, the person doesn't get killed, but what is the witness supposed to do?)

[cellio]

They use a (specific) placeholder phrase during earlier testimony and questioning, so a disagreement between the witnesses would come out before anybody had to say anything dire. My understanding is that the person can't be convicted if two eyewitnesses don't report hearing the exact same thing.

This final testimony with the limited group is because, to convict, they do actually have to repeat what they heard. (Well, one does and the other concurs.)

[magid]

I saw this posted elsewhere, and immediately thought of you: daf yomi limericks.