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Commentary on the Mishnah: Tractate Sanhedrin

A commentary on the Mishnah's laws of courts that stops, at one sentence about the world to come, to write down Judaism's Thirteen Principles.

by Maimonides87 passages held

  • Hebrew, a translation held here
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Original title
Kitāb al-Sirāj: Sanhedrin
Original language
Arabic

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Overview

Sanhedrin is the tractate of the Mishnah, the code of rabbinic law compiled around the year 200, that deals with courts and capital trials. One of its chapters, known as Perek Helek, opens with the sentence that all Israel have a share in the world to come, and then names those who have none. Maimonides was explaining the Mishnah line by line, in Judaeo-Arabic, in a commentary he completed in Egypt in 1168; at that sentence he stopped for a long introduction of his own. He begins with the confusion he saw around him. Some people expected a garden with rivers of wine, where the righteous eat and drink without labour; some expected a messianic age when the earth would produce woven clothes and baked bread; some expected the resurrection, and some wealth, children and health in this life. Maimonides answers with a comparison: a teacher promises a small boy nuts, figs and honey to make him study, because the boy cannot yet want learning for its own sake, and Scripture promises its rewards for the same reason. The real reward is the life of the mind after death. The messianic age will be this world as it is, but with Israel free of foreign rule; the Messiah will die, and his son will reign after him. Then come the Thirteen Principles, beginning with God's existence and ending with the resurrection, and a ruling that whoever denies any one of them has left the community of Israel. The principles entered the prayer book in later versions written by others, the hymn Yigdal and the creed Ani Ma'amin. Others contested the list: Hasdai Crescas, a Jewish philosopher in Aragon, set six cornerstones of faith in its place, and his pupil Joseph Albo set three. In 2004 the historian Marc Shapiro showed how many respected rabbis had disputed one principle or another.

Key concepts

What is Perek Helek, and why does the commentary stop there?

It is the chapter of tractate Sanhedrin that opens “All Israel have a share in the world to come” and then lists those who have none. Explaining that one sentence, Maimonides found he first had to say what the world to come is and who counts as Israel. So he paused the line-by-line commentary for a long essay of his own, which ends in the Thirteen Principles.

What are the Thirteen Principles?

They are the foundations of belief Maimonides lists: that God exists, is one, has no body and is eternal; that God alone is to be worshipped; that prophecy is real and Moses the greatest prophet; that the whole Torah is from God and will not be replaced; that God knows human deeds and rewards and punishes them; that the Messiah will come; and that the dead will rise.

What will the messianic age be like, according to this commentary?

Like this world, with one change: Israel will no longer be ruled by other nations. A great king will reign from Zion, more famous among the nations than Solomon, people will make a living with little effort, yet rich and poor, strong and weak will still exist. Its value is that perfection will be easier to reach in those days, so that people come to merit the world to come.

Who is the “rebellious elder”?

A scholar qualified to rule on the law who defies a decision of the highest court. When a question cannot be settled by a lower court, it goes up to the highest one, which decides by received tradition or by reasoning until all or most agree. A scholar who then rules against that decision is the rebellious elder, and the law treats him as one who has left the community whose disputes the court exists to settle.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Nuts and Figs for the Child

What does a believer actually hope for: a garden of delights, a golden age on earth, or something no body could enjoy? Maimonides stops his commentary at the world to come to sort hope from fantasy.

Most people, Maimonides observes, picture the world to come as eating and drinking without labour, or a messianic age when the land yields baked bread and fine clothes. He answers with a teacher who bribes a small boy to read with nuts, figs and honey, because the boy cannot yet want learning for itself; Scripture's promised rewards work the same way. The true reward is the soul's life with God after death. The messianic age is this world freed from foreign rule, and the Messiah will die and his son will reign.

  • afterlife
  • reward and punishment
  • messianism
  • soul
  • pleasure
  • religious belief

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Thirteen Principles and Three Kinds of Reader

Does belonging to Israel depend on what a person believes, and how should the sages' strange stories be read? Here Maimonides sets down a creed for the first time and a rule for reading.

Three kinds of people meet the sages' stories, Maimonides says. The first take them literally and believe impossible things, the second take them literally and mock them, and a rare third know them to be riddles and parables hiding deep truths. To the commentary he then adds thirteen foundations, from God's existence and unity through prophecy, Moses and the Torah to the Messiah and the resurrection. Whoever holds them all belongs to Israel and must be loved and treated as a brother, even if he sins.

  • religious belief
  • heresy
  • prophecy
  • idolatry
  • allegory
  • scriptural interpretation

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A Court Slow to Kill

How should judges behave when a life hangs on their verdict? Most of the tractate is about courts, and Maimonides reads its rules as a system built to make execution hard.

The place of stoning stood outside the court, Maimonides explains, so that the judges would not seem eager to kill, and a herald went before the condemned in case anyone could still speak in his defence. Witnesses were cross-examined down to the stalks of the figs under the tree they named. A gambler is disqualified as a witness, because his time goes into something of no use to society. A pursuer about to kill may be stopped even by force, but once the act is over only a court with witnesses may punish.

  • capital punishment
  • criminal law
  • evidence
  • testimony
  • legal procedure
  • judicial procedure
  • legal authority
  • punishment

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Within this work

passages held
87
distinct concepts
173
by passages held, corpus-wide
#535

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “capital punishment” and “evidence”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 13 pairings. 70 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
capital punishmentevidence5
religious lawsexual ethics4
afterlifereligious law2
capital punishmentcriminal law2
capital punishmentlegal authority2
criminal lawevidence2
criminal lawsexual ethics2
legal authorityrabbinic law2
capital punishmentreligious law1
criminal lawrabbinic law1
criminal lawreligious law1
evidencelegal authority1
legal authorityreligious law1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. Commentary on the Mishnah: Tractate Sanhedrin (Kitāb al-Sirāj: Sanhedrin) you are here HE
  2. Eight Chapters on Ethics (Shemonah Perakim)

    Maimonides' ethics set out in eight chapters, opening his commentary on the tractate Avot in 1168; the Mishneh Torah's laws of character later restate its doctrine of the mean as law. Held in Joseph Gorfinkle's English of 1912.

     EN
  3. Mishneh Torah: Foundations of the Torah (Mishneh Torah: Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah)

    Where the Mishneh Torah begins: Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah, the opening section of its first book, the Book of Knowledge (Sefer ha-Madda); held alone, its ten chapters in Simon Glazer's English of 1927.

     EN
  4. Mishneh Torah: Human Dispositions (Mishneh Torah: Hilkhot De'ot)

    The second of the five sections of the Book of Knowledge, between the Foundations of the Torah and the laws of Torah study; held alone, its seven chapters in Simon Glazer's English of 1927.

     EN
  5. Mishneh Torah: Repentance (Mishneh Torah: Hilkhot Teshuvah)

    Closing the Mishneh Torah's first book, the Book of Knowledge, Hilkhot Teshuvah is the last of its five sections; held alone, its ten chapters in Simon Glazer's English of 1927.

     EN
  6. The Commentary to Mishnah Aboth (Kitāb al-Sirāj: Avot)

    Maimonides' commentary on the five chapters of Avot, written within the Commentary on the Mishnah and opened by the Eight Chapters, which have their own page here; held in Samuel ibn Tibbon's medieval Hebrew.

     HE
  7. The Guide for the Perplexed (Dalālat al-Ḥāʾirīn)

    Maimonides' last major book, addressed to a single reader and completed in Fustat around 1190, a decade after the Mishneh Torah had made his name. Held here in Michael Friedländer's English of 1904, with the letter to Joseph.

     EN
  8. Treatise on Logic (Maqāla fī ṣināʿat al-manṭiq)

    Traditionally the earliest of Maimonides' writings; held in Moses ibn Tibbon's Hebrew, all fourteen chapters, from a Warsaw printing of 1928.

     HE
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