“And it was in the days of the judging of the judges…” (Ruth 1:1)

The opening words of the Book of Ruth seem merely to tell us that these events took place when the judges judged, sometime between the initial settlement of the land and the establishment of the monarchy. The Talmud reads the words more literally:

Rabbi Yochanan said:…A generation that judges its judges.  [A judge] would say to [someone]: remove the splinter from between your eyes; he would say to [the judge]: remove the beam from between your eyes. He would say to him: Your silver has become dross; he would say to him: your wine is diluted with water. (Bava Batra 16b, citing Isaiah 1:22)

Rabbi Yochanan describes a society whose judges are so corrupt that they lack any moral authority, reimagining a verse in Isaiah as a dialogue in which judge and defendant accuse each other of dishonest business practices. In the next verse, Isaiah continues to rebuke Judah and Jerusalem:

Your officers are wayward and friends of thieves, all loving corruption and pursuing bribes; they do not judge the orphan, and the widow’s claim does not come before them. (Isaiah 1:23)

In the time of Isaiah, corruption went hand in hand with injustice. Where a favorable judgement depended on bribes, an impoverished widow or orphan was unlikely to get a fair hearing, or any hearing. It........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)