Sanhedrin

Representation of a meeting of the Sanhedrin in an encyclopedia of 1883.

The sanhedrin (Hebrew and Aramaic: סנהדרין; Greek: Συνέδριον, synedrion, literally 'sit together') was an assembly or council > of scholars structured into twenty-three or seventy-one rabbis in each city of the Land of Israel, who acted as judges. In the Second Temple period, the great Sanhedrin met in the Temple, in Jerusalem, in the so-called Hall of Hewn Stones. The great Sanhedrin met every day, except on Jewish festivals and on the Sabbath (Shabbat). The Sanhedrin consisted of seventy-one members: the high priest of Israel and seventy prominent men of the nation.

Dissolution

After the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, the Sanhedrin was reestablished in Yavneh with reduced authority, although both the Roman imperial government and law still recognize it as the highest authority on religious matters.

In 80 he moved to Usha, under the presidency of Gamaliel II. In 116 he passed again to Yavneh, and again back to Usha. He moved to Shefaram in 140 under the presidency of Shimon ben Gamaliel II, and moved again in 163 to Beth Shearim and Sepphoris, under the presidency of Judah I. Finally, he moved to Tiberias, in 193, under the presidency of Gamaliel III (193-220), son of Judah Hanasi, where it became more of a consistory. But it still retains, under the presidency of Judah II (220 to 270), the power of excommunication.

During the presidency of Gamaliel IV (from 270 to 290), he abandoned the name "Sanhedrin", replacing it with "Beth Hamidrash".

In reaction to the pro-Jewish stance of the Emperor Julian, Theodosius I prohibited the sessions of the Sanhedrin and declared ordination illegal. Roman law indicated the death penalty for every rabbi who received ordination and the complete destruction of the city where it took place.

Since the Hebrew calendar is based on eyewitness testimony, something made too dangerous by the Roman position, Hillel II recommends switching to a calendar based on mathematical calculations. This calendar was adopted in the year 358 in a clandestine session of the Sanhedrin, which was probably the last session and was definitely the last major decision of his.

Gamaliel VI (400-425) was the last president of the Sanhedrin. With his death in 425, executed by Theodosius II for having built new synagogues against imperial decree, the title of Nasi, the last vestige of the old Sanhedrin, became illegal. An imperial decree of the year 426 derived the tax of the patriarchs (post excessum patriarchorum) in the imperial treasury.^{[citation required]}

Structure, functions and procedures

The Sanhedrin claimed functions that the Jewish lower courts did not. As such, they were the only ones who could judge the king, extend the limits of the Temple and Jerusalem, and were the ones who resolved all questions related to the interpretation of the law.

Before 191 B.C. C., the high priest acted ex officio as head of the Sanhedrin, but in 191 a. C., when the Sanhedrin lost confidence in the high priest, the position of Nasi (president) was created.

After the time of Hillel the Elder (late I century BCE and early I AD), the Nasi was almost always a descendant of Hillel. The second-ranking member of the Sanhedrin was called Av Beit Din, or head of the court (literally, Beit Din = 'house of law'), who presided over the Sanhedrin when it sat as a criminal court.

The Sanhedrin met in the building known as the Hall of Carved Stones (Lishkat Ha-Gazith), which both the Talmud and many scholars locate on the north wall of the Temple Mount, half of which is inside the sanctuary and the other half outside of it, with access doors both towards the Temple and towards the exterior. The hall's name probably served to distinguish it from the buildings in the Temple complex used for ritual purposes, which must have been built of rough stones with some iron tool.

Renewal attempts

Since the dissolution of the Sanhedrin in 358, there has been no universally recognized authority within Jewish law.

Maimonides (1135-1204) was one of the greatest scholars of the Middle Ages and is possibly one of the most widely accepted scholars among the Jewish people, since the closure of the Talmud in the year 500. Influenced by the rationalist school of thought and, in general, inclined towards a natural redemption – assuming a compatibilist position – of the Jewish people, Maimonides proposes a rationalist solution to achieve the objective of reestablishing the highest court in the Jewish tradition, investing it with the same authority that it originally enjoyed. There have been several attempts to apply Maimonides' recommendations, the last of them in modern times.

The problem with the reinstatement of the Sanhedrin lies in the fact that, when its activity was interrupted, there was no entity with sufficient authority to appoint someone as a member of it. Maimonides' proposal is found in his work Mishneh Torah:

It seems to me that if all the sages of the Land of Israel consent to name dayanim (judges) and grant them semi-jah (ordination), they have the right of musmajim and can judge the cases of punishment and are authorized to grant the other [restauraging thus] biblical ordination.

(Mishé Tora, Hilchot Sanedrín 4:11)

From this position, there have been attempts to renew rabbinic ordination and re-establish a Sanhedrin: Rabbi Jacob Berab in 1538, Rabbi Israel Shklover in 1830, Rabbi Aharon HaCohen Mendel in 1901, Rabbi Zvi Kovsker in 1940 and Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon in 1949, as well as Napoleon's Sanhedrin in 1806.

The latest attempt is from October 2004 (Tishrei 5765), when a group of rabbis representing various Orthodox communities in Israel held a ceremony in Tiberias, where the original Sanhedrin had dissolved, in which the group reinstated the Sanhedrin according to Maimonides' proposal and the legal work of Rabbi Joseph Caro (the author of the Shulchan Aruch). This initiative has not been universally recognized, and most of the leading rabbis within the Orthodox world chose not to take part in it (although they generally refrained from condemning it).