'I can't understand it,' said the coach of the football team.  'It was
such an important game that I bribed the referee and yet we still lost.'
'Terrible, isn't it,' the team captain agreed. 'It's getting so you can't
trust anyone.'

 

The Torah warns that “You shall not take a bribe, for bribery blinds the
eyes of the wise and perverts the words of
the just."

 

The Choftetz Chaim writes that the power of certain statements depend on
who is saying them. If you hear someone utter, "He is rich," the power of
that statement depends on who is saying it. If a poor person says that
about someone, it may not mean much because everything is relative. If a
regular person says it, it has a certain weight. If Bill Gates says it,
then you know the person being described must be very very rich.

 

If the average person describes someone as just and wise, then it carries
a certain amount of work. Here we have an individual whom the Torah
itself describes as just and wise. You can believe that this person is
very just and very wise. Even such a person is subject to the insidious
influence of bribery as the following true story illustrates:

 

The Talmud relates the story of a person who brought Rabbi Ishmael ben
Elisha the "First Shearings", one of the gifts which are customarily
given to the Kohanim (priests).

 

Rabbi Ishmael asked the man, "Where are you from?"

 

The person replied, "From such-and-such a place."

 

Rabbi Ishmael continued, "Between there and here, you found no other
Kohen to whom you could give it?"

 

"I had to come here for a matter of litigation.  I said to myself, since
I'm coming here anyway, why not give it to you."

 

Rabbi Ishmael refused to accept the gift, and recused himself from the
case.  Instead, he appointed two other scholars to judge the case.  When
he passed by the courthouse and overheard the litigation taking place,
Rabbi Ishmael found himself advocating for the person who had offered him
the gift - "if he wanted, he could argue such-and-such" and present a
better case.

 

When he realized what was happening, he exclaimed, “Cursed be those who
accept bribes! I did not even accept anything from him, and even if I
would have accepted it, it was something that is mine by rights.  Even
so, I am leaning toward his favor. Imagine someone who actually does
accept a bribe!"