Today’s story is from Sanhedrin 11a.
Rabban Gamliel [The head of the court] asked his aid to bring seven judges to declare Chodesh [The New Month], but eight judges showed up.
He asked the judge who was not designated to leave, Shimon HaKatan [Simon the small] stood and said he was the extra judge and but he came just to watch.
Rabban Gamliel told him to sit and watch. The the other judges complained about this (implying) he could not watch since he was not part of the court. But, Rabban Gamliel did not let him leave?
What happened here?
Shimon HaKatanl stood up and so that person who was not supposed to be they would not be embarrassed.
Rabban Gamliel would have known who shouldn’t have been in the room. By singling him out, he would have embarrassed him. The person was not qualified to be a Judge and you needed 8 Judges to make the declaration.
[9 were there, Rabban Gamliel + 8 others]
But why didn’t Rabban Gamliel let him leave?
If Shimon had left the judge who should not have been in the room would be counted and he wasn’t qualified.
My father taught me a similiar lesson, he used to say, if somebody makes a mistake, they know they made a mistake, its not necessary to point it out to them. I personally find that hard to remember, especially when I am cleaning up the doggy doo.
What The Heck Was This?
Every day I work a little on a reference book of each person in the Talmud. It will include their experiences documented in the Talmud, who their teachers were, who their students were, where they lived and where they visited.
I expect the book will be of interest to about 37 people and another few hundred around the world.
But, as I am writing my book, I am also gathering stories of these people and some of these stories make interesting reading on leadership.
This is one such story and a lesson I think we can apply in our everyday lives.
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