Israel Needs a Sanhedrin

By Moshe Feiglin

According to the law that they will instruct you and the judgment that they will tell you, you shall do. Do not stray from the sentence that they will tell you to the left or to the right. (From this week's Torah portion, Shoftim, Deuteronomy 17:11)

"Even if they tell you that right is left and left is right," Rashi explains the verse above. From here we learn that we must obey the decision of the rabbis even when there seems to be no logic to their words.

But wait a minute: What do we do when the rabbis disagree? Our Sages instruct us to designate a rabbi for ourselves and to consistently listen to him.

That is practical advice but it still doesn't resolve our question. What is the will of the Torah and G-d, the Giver of the Torah if the rabbis disagree? How do we relate to what is written in the Torah if there is no national authority that explains it uniformly to the people?

The Torah verses prior to the above verse shed light on this issue: If there arises a matter too difficult for you to judge, and you shall rise and ascend to the place that Hashem your G-d has chosen. And you shall come to the Priests and the Levites and the judge who and you shall act according to the sentence that they will tell you from that place that G-d has chosen and you shall be careful to do all that they instruct you.

Now that we have the entire picture, it is easier to understand. When the Sages of Israel sit together in the court on the Temple Mount, their Torah has a supernatural aspect that is above disagreement or doubt. Whoever fears G-d is then obligated to blindly obey their words - even if he thinks that they have judged left to be right. However, as long as the Torah of exile reigns, it is not possible to obey it outside the parameters of human logic and conscience. As long as the Torah scholars do not re-instate the Great Court - the Sanhedrin - on the Temple Mount, a different court - the Israeli Supreme Court - reigns supreme. Its legitimacy does not stem from the fact that it represents the majority (which it does not) but rather from the fact that it represents the unity of the majority.

The return of G-d fearing Jews to the Temple Mount threatens the old, exile order. This may be the deeper reason for the opposition to Jewish ascent to the Temple Mount in some religious circles. If the ascent to the Temple Mount becomes established, the demand to renew the Sanhedrin (the Jewish High Court on the Temple Mount) will naturally follow. No establishment dissolves itself willingly - not even the religious establishment.

Shabbat Shalom