אדמון

Admon — a baraita gives his full name as Admon ben Gadai — was a tanna and a judge in Yerushalayim in the last years of Bayit Sheni, at the close of the era of the zugot and the opening of the era of the tannaim. He sat among the dayanei gezeirot, a small body set apart from the many batei din of the city, whose work was fines and takanot in cases of theft and damage, and who held the power to assess payment beyond the strict line of the law. The Mishnah in Ketubot names two such judges, Admon and Chanan ben Avishalom; Rabbi Natan counts three, adding Nachum HaMadi, and another baraita brings Chanan HaMitzri among them. Admon was the weightiest of them. One of their rulings fixes what is paid for an animal that broke a neighbor’s sapling: Rabbi Yosi reports in their name two kesef for a sapling in its first year and four for one of two years.

The last perek of Ketubot brings seven disputes between Admon and the chachamim in dinei mamonot, and in several of them Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh later came around to his side. In one of them Admon answered with a line that passed into common speech: because I am male, have I lost out? Rabbi Yitzchak ben Elazar taught in the name of Chizkiyah that wherever Rabban Gamliel said he sees the words of Admon, the halachah follows Admon. The Geonim divided over that rule — Rav Shmuel ben Chofni Gaon held the halachah is like Admon in two of the disputes, Rav Natronai Gaon in none of them, and others took further positions. The Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch pasken like Admon in the second and third disputes only, and like the chachamim in the rest. The kever ascribed to him lies south of Tzfat, near the ruins of the village of Ukiva, beside the kever of Akavya ben Mahalalel.