JEWISH WORLD

JEWISH WORLD • MARCH 19-25, 2021 7 By SHLOMO RISKIN “If the entire congregation of Israel commits an inadvertent vio- lation as a result of [a mistaken legal decision of the Highest Court] … and they thereby violate one of the prohibitory command- ments of G-d, they shall incur guilt” (Lev.4:13). I f the Jewish state could be revived from the ashes of destruction after 2,000 years, why hasn’t the Sanhedrin, the great Jewish court of the First and Second Commonwealths, been re- vived? During the centuries of its exis- tence, this august body, comprised of 71 elders and sages who ruled on every aspect of life, brought unity to the land because their decisions were binding on the entire nation. On the surface, reviving the Sanhedrin seems impossible be- cause its members must be recipi- ents of the classic Jewish ordina- tion that traces itself back to Moses himself, and even to the Almighty, as it were, who or- dained Moses. Then Moses ordained Joshua, Joshua the eld- ers, the elders the prophets, the prophets the Men of the Great Assembly. But this special ordina- tion came to an end in the third century of the Common Era. And since the Sanhedrin’s existence is intrinsic to a living tradition of ordination, when ordination died out, so, it would seem, did the Sanhedrin and the possibility of its revival. But a verse in this week’s por- tion creates alternative possibili- ties. In his commentary to the Mishna, Maimonides writes, “if all the Jewish sages and their dis- ciples would agree on the choice of one person among those who dwell in Israel as their head [but this must be done in the land of Israel], and (that head) establishes a house of learning, he would be considered as having received the original ordination and could then ordain anyone he desires.” Mai- monides adds that the Sanhedrin would return to its original func- tion, as written in Isaiah 1:26: “I will restore thy judges as at first and thy sages as in the beginning.” Such a selection would mean an election, a list of candidates, ballots. So who does the choos- ing? The sages and their disciples — everyone with a relationship to Torah, to Jewish law. Elsewhere, Maimonides extends the privilege of voting to all adult residents of Israel! (See intrepretations of the Mishna, Chapter 4 of tractate B’Chorot, on the words “one who slaughters a first-born animal and shows its blemish”). This idea reappears in Mai- monides’ Mishna Torah, Laws of Sanhedrin, Ch. 4, Law 11, except that there he concludes with the phrase, “this matter requires deci- sion.” In 1563, a significant attempt was made by a leading sage of Safed, Rabbi Yaakov Berab, to revive classic ordination by means of Maimonides’ formula, and in an election held in Safed, Rabbi Berab was declared officially ordained. He proceeded to ordain several of his disciples along with his most important student, Rabbi Yosef Karo, author of the Shul- chan Aruch. In the meantime, the rabbis in Jerusalem, led by Rabbi Levi ibn Habib, strongly opposed the Safed decision. When the question was put before Rabbi David ben Zimra (the Radbaz), the chief rabbi of Egypt, he ruled in favor of the Jerusalem rabbis because not only had the election been restricted to one city of Israel (Safed and not Jerusalem), but the acknowledg- ment that “this matter requires decision” opened up the possibili- ty that Maimonides might have changed his mind, in effect leav- ing the issue unadjudicated. Rabbi Yaakov Berab, on the other hand, understood that the phrase “requires decision” re- ferred to whether one or three was sufficient to ordain others, or were sages were required to grant ordi- nation. But he was absolutely con- vinced that Maimonides had no doubt whatsoever about the me- thod and the inevitability of reviv- ing classic ordination. T hree centuries later, the first minister of religion in the new government of the Jewish state, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon, renewed this controversy when he tried to convince the political and religious establishments that along with creation of the state should come the establishment of a Sanhedrin. Re-establishing The Sanhedrin Parshat Vayikra Leviticus: 1-5:26 The people of Israel must decide who has the authority to recreate Mosaic ordination, and the Sanhedrin. DVAR TORAH continued on page 26