Moed Katan 17 – The power of the Sages

A particular Torah scholar was reported to have inappropriate relationships with young women. Rav Yehudah discussed with his colleagues, "What are we to do? Excommunicate him? - But he is a teacher of many students. Not to excommunicate? Covering up on him is a desecration of God's name!" Rabbah told him in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, "Teacher should be like an angel, and if not – do not study from him." Based on that, they excommunicated him.

A while later, Rav Yehudah was sick, and the Sages visited him. When Rav Yehudah saw the excommunicated scholar with them, he laughed. The scholar said, "Not only you excommunicated me, but you also taunt me!" Rav Yehudah replied, "I am not laughing at you, but at the thought that when I die, I will be congratulated on not flattering even such a powerful and connected man like you."

After Rav Yehudah's death, the man came to rescind the excommunication. However, Rav Shmuel bar Nachmani, who for years has not visited the assembly, happened to come on this day and said, "How can we do it, seeing that Rav Yehudah did not make peace with him? Why, even a maidservant of Rabbi Yehudah the Prince – when she excommunicated someone, the Sages observed this for three years!" The excommunicated man left the study hall, and a bee bit him on his male organ, and he died. The burial cave of the pious did not accept him, but that of the judges – did. Why did it? – Because he would change his dress and go to faraway places when transgressing so that people would not see him misbehave openly.

And what was the story of Rabbi Yehudah's maidservant? – When she saw a man beating his grown-up son, she excommunicated him. By provoking his son to retaliate and violate the mitzvah of honoring the father, he was "putting a stumbling block in front of a blind man."

Art: A Maidservant With A Boy In A Larder by Pietro Ricchi