How does having judges in every city help produce a correct judgement?

(16,18) Judges and officials you shall place in all your gates which Hashem, your G-d, is giving to you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people with a righteous judgement.

Behold, Chazal said in Pirkei Avos to be deliberate in judgement, so that the judges will be able to arrive at the truth, and not come to make an error. But if they judge hastily it will be quite likely that they will make a mistake.

Now, if there will be judges only in a few places, and not in every city, then all litigants will have to come to one of these few courts, which will put a big work load on them, and as a result of the large amount of cases they will make their decisions speedily and not be deliberate in judgement. But if they appoint many judges, in every city, than they will only have to deal with the cases from that city, which will not involve to large amount of work, and so they will be able to take their time and deliberate the case.

This is what the posuk means, “Judges and officers you will place in all your gates”, and because of this “they shall judge the people with a righteous judgement”.

When will judges be afraid to act falsely?

(16,18) Judges and officials you shall place in all your gates which Hashem, your G-d, is giving to you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people with a righteous judgement.

Another explanation is that since it is a rule that a person does not lie about a matter which is likely to be revealed, if they appoint judges in every city then the judges will be afraid to judge falsely, because the litigants might go to another court close to their city which will rule the opposite, and so the first judges will be caught in their lie. But if they do not appoint judges in every city, then they might judge falsely since there are no other judges nearby to reveal their falsehood. And it is not likely that the litigants will trouble themselves to go to a greater court far away.

Even if there are other Torah sages around, the renegade judges could simply claim that they are not judges and so are not competent in judgements. As we see from the gemara which comments that R. Nasan was a judge and penetrated the depths of a case, which implies that somebody who is a Torah sage but not a judge is not so expert in laws. Therefore the falsehood of the local judges will not be made known. Therefore it says “Judges and officers you shall place in all your cities”, and thereby “you shall judge the people a righteous judgement”, since the judges will not act falsely in a matter which is likely to be revealed.

When should a great Torah sage accept the position of judge?

(16,18) Judges and officials you shall place in all your gates which Hashem, your G-d, gives you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people with a righteous judgement. You shall not pervert justice…

Another explanation of these posukim is according to the teaching of Chazal, who said that the great Torah sages fled from positions of authority and did not wish to be appointed as judges, and so it is brought in the Shulchan Aruch in Choshen Mishpot. But this is only if there are other people fitting for this. But if there are no others, then Chazal said the opposite, that the posuk in Mishlei (7,26) “and numerous are all her slain” refers to a student of Torah who has reached the level where he can decide halachah and does not do so. And they also said in Pirkei Avos “In a place where there is no man, strive to be a man”.

This is what the Torah is saying to the great Torah sage of the generation, “Judges and officers you shall place” - you yourself should not accept upon yourselves to be a judge, but rather you shall appoint others to be judges. But this is on condition that “they shall judge the people with a righteous judgement” - if you know that they will judge correctly, then you have permission to hold yourselves back from being a judge. But if you know that he will not judge correctly, then I caution you that “you shall not pervert justice”, because if you refuse then to be a judge, you will be held guilty as if you are the one who is perverting justice. Because in a place where there is no man, no one capable of being a judge, it is proper for you to be a judge.

In which situations would it be permissible for a relative of a litigant to judge a case?

(16,18) Judges and officials you shall place in all your gates which Hashem, your G-d, gives you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people with a righteous judgement.

The Midrash asks on our posuk: “Judges and officials you shall place in all your gates…and they shall judge the people with a righteous judgement” - Is it permissible for a person’s relative to sit on his case? This is what our Rabbis have taught - These are the relatives (who are disqualified): his father, his mother, etc. Why is it so? Because just as a relative is disqualified to be a witness, so too he is disqualified to be a judge. And from where did you learn this? Said Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, it is written in Devarim (21,5) “And the Kohanim, the sons of Levi, shall approach, for Hashem, Your G-d, has chosen them to serve Him, and to bless in the name of Hashem, and by their mouth shall be every dispute and every lesion”. Come and see - the posuk compares negaim (lesions) to disputes, and disputes to negaim. Just as negaim are only examined during the day, so too judgements are only conducted during the day. And just as relatives are excluded from disputes, so too relatives are excluded from examining negaim.

This Midrash is a puzzle - how is all this connected to our parsha? And even more puzzling is that it seems to be asking how we know that a relative is disqualified from being a judge, yet it concludes by learning from disputes that relatives are disqualified from examining negaim, but does not tell us how we know in the first place that they are disqualified from disputes? It’s possible that the Torah equates disputes and negaim only for the rule that they should both be during the day, but relatives are qualified for both disputes and negaim.

But it seems to me that we can explain all this by first paying careful attention to the wording of the Midrash, which asked if a relative is permitted to sit on his case, but did not ask whether he is permitted to judge his case, which would have implied judging his case alone. Also, we note that the disqualification of a relative from being a judge or a witness is because the Torah decreed that it should be so. But really, even if it had not, it would in any case have been logical to disqualify a relative from being a judge, because he would be naturally biased towards his relative.

However, there is a difference between whether the disqualification is from a decree of the Torah or from logic. Because if it was only according to logic, then if the judge was related to both litigants we would certainly permit him to be a judge. Also, since monetary cases require that there be three judges we would permit one of them to be a relative, because even his opinion is biased towards his relative, nevertheless, since the other two judges are the majority, and the judgement follows the majority, they can still decide the case in favour of the other litigant. But if it is because of a decree of the Torah, the relative would be disqualified in both these scenarios.

Now, Rashi explained on our posuk, that the phrase “for your tribes” teaches us that it is a mitzvah for the tribes to appoint judges for each tribe separately. The commentaries raised a difficulty with this, because since the Torah has already commanded us to place judges in every city, if so, this would already mean that each tribe would have its own judges. They answered that this extra teaching is for when there were two tribes in one city, and in that case there needs to be two courts. But it is not clear why this should be - why is one court not sufficient?

But the explanation is that if there was only one tribe in a city, then the judges of the court could be from that city, because there would be no concern of bias to one of the litigants since they are all of the same tribe. But a city in which there are two tribes, since we can not have a court with an equal number of judges, it would be necessary to have the majority of the judges from one tribe. Therefore, if two people from this city have a disagreement, one from one tribe and one from the other, and they come to be judged before this mixed court, perhaps the judges will be biased towards their tribesmen, and decide the case in their favour. Therefore, it is necessary here to have two courts in one city.

But from this it would seem that we could learn that which we mentioned earlier, that it is only a problem because two of the judges are related, by tribe, to one of the litigants, and so too in general only if the judge is related to one of the litigants is he disqualified, but if he was related to both of them he would be permitted to judge. Also, if two of the judges are not related to the litigants, then the third judge would be permitted to be a relative to one of the litigants, because even if he is biased to his relative the other two will decide the case against him.

This is why the Midrash did not ask if it is permissible for a relative to be a judge alone, because this certainly is forbidden from logic. Rather the question was if he can sit together on his relatives case with two others. On this the Midrash answered this is what our Rabbis taught - these are the relatives, that is, these relatives which the Rabbis enumerated are completely disqualified by decree of the Torah - just as they are disqualified as witnesses, so too they are disqualified to be a judge, even if only one judge is a relative, and even if he is related to both litigants. But with all other relatives we go after logic, and if the judge is related to both of them it is permitted, but if he is related to only one of the litigants, it is proper that he should distance himself. Therefore, in a city in which there are two tribes there needs to be two courts.

But the Midrash then asked that this itself, that the relatives which the rabbis enumerated are completely disqualified, from where do you know it? Perhaps they are only disqualified as a witness, because the money of a case is extracted mainly as a result of the testimony of the witnesses, But they are valid to be judges in those situations where there is no concern from their possible bias in their relatives favour.

This the Midrash answers well, because behold, the Abarbanel writes on this parsha that the majority of judges during the period of the first Beis Hamikdash were Kohanim or Leviim. He writes that the reason was because they had no portion in the land, and no business dealings, and so they were free to involve themselves with learning Torah, and thus were fitting to be judges. To my mind, we can add another reason to this. That in those days only those who had received Semichah (Rabbinic ordination) were allowed to judge, and so there were relatively few judges. If so, if they would appoint judges from Yisrael, what would happen if a father had a case with the son or father of one of the judges - since a relative is forbidden to judge, and there were so few judges, in front of whom could he be judged? Therefore, where possible, they appointed judges from the Kohanim or the Leviim, who, since they owned no land and had no business dealings, it was not so likely that one of their relatives would have a business dispute or quarrel with someone else. Even though it might happen that he may be related through his Yisrael wife, it is not so common as it would be if the judges were Yisraelim.

But according to this it is clear that a judge who is related to a litigant is disqualified from a decree of the Torah, and so even if the two other judges are not relatives, because if not so, there would be no need for the judges to be specifically Kohanim, because it would be possible to appoint three judges who are not related one to the other, and so even if a case would involve the father or son of one of the judges it would still be possible to judge the case since the majority are not relatives. Therefore, it must be that the disqualification is from the Torah.

This is the proof that the Midrash brings from the posuk “and the Kohanim will draw near…and by their mouth will be every dispute and every nega”. But the Midrash has to explain how we indeed know that the reason that they must be specifically Kohanim is for this reason. Therefore the Midrash said that behold the Torah compared here disputes to negaim, and if it is only to teach the matter of day alone, what relevance is this comparison to here. Therefore, the posuk must be coming to teach a comparison in the opposite direction, that just as with disputes relatives are disqualified from a decree of the Torah, so too also negaim. And therefore it put this comparison here, because here it writes that specifically by the mouth of Kohanim is every dispute in order that they will not be related to the litigants. Thus we see that with disputes relatives are disqualified. And the Torah compared negaim to disputes - just like a relative is disqualified to judge even to decide against his relative, so too a Kohen who is a relative cannot examine negaim even to declare him impure. So it seems to me to explain the Midrash because of its great wonder in my eyes.