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The first Mishna in Massekhet Sanhedrin (2a) taught that for simple cases of monetary matters the appropriate court is made up of three judges. Several sources are offered by the Gemara for this number of judges. According to Rabbi Yonatan, the repeated use of the word elohim in Shemot 22:8 indicates that we need two judges. We do not want to have an even number of judges, since we want to allow court decisions to be made based on a majority ruling, so we add a third judge to the bench.
We explore the concept of majority rule in halacha.