We’ll continue talking about how many Dayanim, or judges, are needed to deal with different cases. The Mishnah says that all different types of crimes punishable by lashes are judged by a court of three Dayanim, or three judges. In most cases, a person who violates a biblical prohibition is punished by Malkot. But in the name of Rabbi Yishmael, they said that a crime like that needs to be brought to a Beit Din (court) of 23 judges. He derives this by connecting it to a case of capital punishment, as we mentioned in the last Mishnah. Whenever we have a case that could possibly lead to the death penalty, we learn from the Torah that we need a Beit Din of at least 23 judges. Rabbi Yishmael makes the same connection for Malkot, for lashes. That is similar to putting a person to death, so you need 23 for that as well.
If we’re adding a day to the month, that means that in the old days, in times of the Mishnah, they had a Jewish calendar based on Re'iyah, based on sight. They didn’t have a set calendar. A month was either 29 days or 30 days. It depended on whether witnesses showed up and claimed that they saw the new moon. If witnesses showed up on the 30th day of the month and said that they saw the new moon, then the rabbis—that Beit Din—would declare that day itself, the 30th day after the previous Rosh Chodesh, to be the Rosh Chodesh of the next month, the first day of that incoming month. If no witnesses showed up at all, then the 30th day stayed with the previous month, and the 31st day became Rosh Chodesh automatically, with no edim (witnesses) showing up. So we’re talking about accepting those three—accepting those witnesses. Witnesses could be accepted by a Beit Din of three people.
Adding a month to the year, making it a leap year by adding a double Adar, a 13th month to the Jewish calendar, is also done by a court of three. The reason is that we want to make sure that the lunar and solar calendars match up, that the moon and the sun match. We want to make sure that we connect them every few years. The lunar calendar has less time than the solar calendar. The lunar calendar has 12 months of 29 and a half days, and the regular solar calendar has 365 days. We want to make sure that they match up because we want to make sure that Pesach doesn’t fall too early. Pesach has to happen during Chodesh Ha'aviv (springtime). To prevent that inward shift of the month of Nisan, every few years the rabbis would add an extra month of Adar in order to make Pesach a little bit later. So all of that could be done by a court of three. Divrei Rabbi Meir: This is the opinion of Rabbi Meir.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel disagrees with Rabbi Meir, and he says, “You’re right when you say that we add a month based on a Beit Din of three judges, but that’s only to start considering the matter. When two of those three are in favor of adding a month, we add two more judges, for a total of five, and that panel of five judges discusses whether they should add a month or not. Then, if the majority of those five continue to agree that they should add a month, we add two more judges to them, and we conclude with seven judges. Those judges will announce whether it’s going to be a leap year or not.” Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel does say that even if they didn’t go through that whole process, in a way, after the fact, if they conclude with only three judges that they’re going to add an extra month, it’s considered to be a valid addition, and the year is going to be increased by one month to have a total of 13 months. That leap year is decided even after the fact with only three judges.