Simeon ben Shetach, or Shimon ben Shetach or Shatach, circa 120-40 BCE, was a Pharisee scholar and Nasi of the Sanhedrin during the reigns of Alexander Jannæus (c. 103-76 BCE) and his successor, Queen Salome Alexandra (c. 76-67 BCE), who was Simeon's sister. He was therefore closely connected with the court, enjoying, at least initially, the favor of Alexander.
Background
Simeon Shetach was born on 120 B.C. Simeon ben Shetah (or Shatah) was closely involved in affairs of state during the reigns of King Alexander Yannai, and Queen Salome Alexandra, (103-76 BCE). It was widely believed that he was the brother of the queen, but this is now doubted.
Career
Relations between the Hasmonean king and the Pharisee sage are depicted in the Babylonian Talmud as being bitterly acrimonious. The Jerusalem Talmud, on the other hand, closer in time and place to these individuals and events, views the disputes in a generally conciliatory light, and as being resolved with no great difficulty. In one instance, Simeon ben Shetah even insisted that the king be charged with responsibility for a murder committed by his slave.
Undisputed, however, is the niche occupied by Simeon — at one time, president (nasi) of the Sanhedrin — in the realm of halakhah or Jewish religious law. Perhaps under Alexander Yannai Simeon had already removed Sadducee members from this supreme legislative-judicial body. He restored the Pharisee order of the Temple service in Jerusalem, especially in the matter of the Sadducee- oriented water libation ceremony, a constant source of rancor. There is, however, the story that he ordered the execution of eighty sorceresses in Ascalon in one day, in severe contravention of Pharisaic law. In this instance, apparently, Simeon’s sense ol the grave danger facing the entire Jewish community prompted extreme and immediate measures.
He rebuked his colleague and chairman of the court. Rabbi Judah ben Tabbai, for overstepping the bounds of Jewish law when he ordered the execution of a witness wrongly accused of perjury. Simeon refused to annul the order for the execution of his own son even when the charge against him had been disproved, in order to teach that there should be no favoritism before the law. This
sad case may have led to his famous dictum: “Examine the witnesses with painstaking thoroughness, and take care lest your words be an example for others to speak falsely.” Again, there is the story of his purchasing a donkey from a pagan. When his disciples found a precious gem in the donkey’s sack, the rabbi ordered them to return the gem to its owner, despite their remonstrances, saying, “I purchased a donkey, not a precious stone.”
To Simeon is attributed the ordinance concerning compulsory community education for all boys, regardless of social or economic status, and the increased economic protection he afforded women facing divorce.