that God would pass judgment without justice?” R. Huna then followed their hint, and found that he did not treat his tenant farmer so generously as he ought. He offered redress, and all turned out well in the end. Something similar is to be found in the story of the martyrdom of R. Simeon ben Gamaliel and R. Ishmael ben Elisha. Of these Rabbis we are told that on their way to be executed the one said to the other, “My heart leaves me, for I am not aware of a sin deserving such a death”; on which the other answered, “It might have happened that in your function as judge you sometimes—for your own convenience—were slow in administering justice.”(172) But even if the personal actions of the righteous were blameless, there might still be sufficient ground for his being afflicted and miserable. This may be found in his relations to his kind and surroundings, or, to use the term now more popular, by reason of human solidarity. Now, after the above remarks on the objections entertained by the Rabbis against a man’s being punished for the sins of others, it is hardly necessary to say that their idea of solidarity has little in common with the crude notions of it current in very ancient times. Still, it can hardly be doubted that the relation of the individual to the community was more keenly felt by the Rabbis than by the leaders in any other society, modern or ancient. According to the view given by an ancient Rabbi whose name is unknown, it would, indeed, seem that to them the individual was not simply a member of the Jewish commonwealth, or a co‐religionist, but a limb of the great and single body “Israel,” and that as such he communicated both for good and evil the sensations of the one part to the whole. In the _Midrash_, where a parallel is to be found to this idea, the responsibility of the individual towards the community is further illustrated by R. Simeon ben Yochai, in the following way: “It is,” we read there, “to be compared to people sitting on board a ship, one of the passengers of which took an awl and began to bore holes in the bottom of the vessel. Asked to desist from his dangerous occupation, he answered, ‘Why, I am only making holes on my own seat,’ forgetting that when the water came in it would sink the whole ship.” Thus the sin of a single man might endanger the whole of humanity. It was in conformity with the view of his father that R. Eliezer, the son of R. Simeon (ben Yochai) said, “The world is judged after the merits or demerits of the majority, so that a single individual by his good or bad actions can decide the fate of his fellow‐creatures, as it may happen that he is just the one who constitutes this majority.”(173) Nor does this responsibility cease with the man’s own actions. According to the Rabbis man is responsible even for the conduct of others—and as such liable to punishment—if he is indifferent to the wrong that is being perpetrated about him, whilst an energetic protest from his side could have prevented it.