עדות, תוכחה והתראה: עיון משווה בהלכת כת מדבר יהודה והלכת חז"ל

The article examines and compares three legal terms: rebuke, warning and the obligation to testify, as they were developed in the writings of the Judean desert sect and in rabbinic halakha . It appears that although there are major differences between these two systems in matters of practice, in their methods of biblical interpretation both groups have very much in common. The main principle shared by both of them is the understanding of the biblical term edut ( ) as implying not only the transmission of information but also an element of warning. In order to fulfil both functions of edut the sect established a legal procedure in which a member of the sect who saw his felloe transgressing the law had to report to the overseer in the presence of the transgressor. A transgressor was convicted on the aggregation of two or three such reports. Thus, in the sect's system the testimony functions simultaneously as a rebuke for a past transgression and a warning against the repetition of the act in the future. The rabbis did not accept the sect's procedure since a conviction based on an aggregate of single witnesses informing on two or three different transgressions contradicts the Torah's commandment single witness shall not prevail against a man... Only on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained' (Deut. 19:15). As understood by the rabbis the simple meaning of this verse demands that a conviction can be reached only by two witnesses who testify concerning one and the same transgression. The rabbis therefore established a separate procedure of warning which precedes the conviction. This reading led the rabbis to interpret the obligation to rebuke only within a moral context.