The last few years could have been so different, if only we allowed the Torah to guide us. Shuls, yeshivos, businesses, and the rest of public life should never have been shut down. No one should ever have worn a mask, anywhere, not for one second. Family, friends, and neighbors should never have fallen for psy-ops and isolated themselves from one another, let alone turned against each other.

One of the judges in a capital case who is among those who rule in favor or against, not because he says something that seems correct in his own mind, but he turns after the words of his colleague – he transgresses a negative commandment. About this it says (Shemos 23:2) “Do not respond in a dispute to turn”. From the oral tradition they derive that one should not say at the time of the vote “It is enough that I should be like so-and-so”, but say that which is before you.

This is not only halacha, but it should be common sense.

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The Tur in Choshen Mishpat Hilchos Eidus 28:15 states as follows:

We learned in the Yerushalmi, when Rav [note: our editions of Yerushalmi have it as Rav Huna] would see that witnesses would say their testimony with identical language he would worry that they were lying, and that they conspiratorially directed their tongues as one, and he would investigate and cross-examine them. But if they didn’t speak with actual identical language, but this one said it like this, and this one said it like that, just their testimony was parallel without contradiction, he would not cross-examine them so thoroughly.

Unfortunately, most people didn’t cross-examine them at all. Many of them paid dearly for this, and the carnage is ongoing.