by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

March 13, 2008

If the entire congregation of Israel commits an inadvertent violation as a result of [a mistaken legal decision of the Highest Court]…and they thereby violate one of the prohibitory commandments of God, they shall incur guilt.” (Leviticus 4:13)

If the Jewish state could be revived virtually from the ashes of destruction after 2,000 years, then why hasn’t the Sanhedrin, the great Jewish court of the first and second commonwealths, been revived?

During the centuries of its existence, this august body, comprised of 71 sages, brought unity to the land because their decisions were binding on the entire nation.

On the surface, reviving the Sanhedrin seems impossible because its members must be recipients of the classic Jewish ordination that traces itself back to Moses himself — and even to the Almighty, as it were, who ordained Moses, who ordained Joshua, who ordained the elders, and so on. But this special ordination ended in the third century.

A verse in this week’s portion, however, raises alternate possibilities. In his commentary to the Mishna, Maimonides writes: “…if all the Jewish sages and their disciples would agree on the choice of one person among those who dwell in Israel as their head” — 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 he could then ordain anyone he desires.”

Maimonides adds that the Sanhedrin would return to its original function 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 — but who does the choosing? The sages and their disciples, everyone with a relationship to Torah sages, to Jewish law. In an alternate source, however, Maimonides extends voting privileges to all adult residents of Israel!

This idea reappears in Maimonides’ Mishna Torah, Laws of Sanhedrin, except here he concludes with the phrase: “this matter requires decision.”

In 1563, an attempt was made by a sage, Rabbi Yaakov BeRab, to revive classic ordination using the Maimonidean formula, and in an election in Safed, he was declared officially ordained. He proceeded to ordain his most important student, Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulhan Aruch, and other disciples.

But the rabbis in Jerusalem strongly opposed the Safed decision. When the question was put before the Ridbaz, Rabbi David Ben Zimra, chief rabbi of Egypt, he ruled in favor of the Jerusalem rabbis because not only had the election been restricted to one city, Safed, and not Jerusalem, but also because the closing phrase, “this matter requires decision” opened the possibility that Maimonides may have changed his mind and was, in effect, leaving the issue un-adjudicated.

Rabbi Yaakov BeRab, on the other hand, understood that the phrase “requires decision” referred to whether one sage was sufficient to ordain others, or three sages were required. He was convinced Maimonides had no doubt about the method and inevitability of reviving classic ordination.

Three centuries later, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon, the first minister of religion in the new Jewish state, tried to convince the political and religious establishments that there should also be a creation of a Sanhedrin. In his work The Renewal of the Sanhedrin in Our Renewed State, he cites the existence of a copy of Maimonides’ commentary to the Mishna published along with emendations written by Maimonides himself, where he writes that ordination and the Sanhedrin will be renewed before the coming of the Messiah, which implies that it must be achieved through human efforts. (A photocopy of these words, in Maimonides’ own handwriting, is provided in The Renewal of the Sanhedrin.)

I believe the basis for his democratic suggestion stems from the verse quoted above dealing with the issue of the sins of the entire congregation. Commentators ask how an “entire congregation” can sin. Rashi identifies the “congregation of Israel” with the Sanhedrin. So when it says “…if the entire congregation of Israel errs…” it really means “if the Sanhedrin errs.”

The Jewish people are a nation defined by commandments, precepts, and laws. The institution that protects and defines the law is at the heart of the nation’s existence.

So it should come as no surprise that Maimonides wanted to revive the ordination and found an utterly democratic method to do so.

For Maimonides, it is the population living in the land of Israel who represent the historical congregation of Israel. (B.T. Horayot 3b) Apparently Maimonides is saying that before the next stage of Jewish history unfolds, the nation will have to decide who shall be given the authority to recreate the ordination, who will be commander-in-chief of the rabbis. Will it happen in our lifetime?

Shlomo Riskin is the chief rabbi of the city of Efrat and dean of Ohr Torah Institutes in Israel.

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