Will We Have a Sanhedrin In the Future?

I know I am going to receive a lot of flak for the following, but thankfully, the Chief Rabbinate (who performed - and claims to be able to annul - my conversion) doesn't read my blog, and furthermore, nothing a man does (versus what a woman does) can harm his shiddukh chances. So I figure, go for broke:

It seems to me that the entirety of Mesekhet Horayot - about what to do when the Sanhedrin errs - itself is the eulogy for the Sanhedrin. The Yerushalmi there says that you disobey the Sanhedrin when it says left is right and right is left, and the Bavli there says that there is no kavod ha-rav (honoring a rabbi) in a case of hillul ha-shem (desecration of God's name, including pronouncement of erroneous halakhic views). Furthermore, the principle of ein shaliah b'davar `averah ("there is no [excuse of being someone else's] proxy [as an agent] in the case of [the performance of] sin [at their behest]"), which demands disobedience of everything and anything anyone ever commands anyone else when it violates the Torah, means here would never be a case where you should obey the Sanhedrin if you disagree with it, which results in abolition of the Sanhedrin altogether.

Now, the Sifrei famously disagrees, and say to follow the Sanhedrin even when it says left is right and right is left, but we have already seen that the Bavli and Yerushalmi seem to disagree, as well as the fundamental and axiomatic principle of ein shaliah b'davar `averah. Rabbi D. Z. Hoffman suggests that the Yerushalmi and Sifrei simply disagree, while others suggest that Sifrei and Yerushalmi are talking about two different situations: Sifrei says obey if you are a layman and don't know enough, Yerushalmi says to disobey if you are a hakham and know enough to question authority. Others, however, suggest that the two are talking about different kinds of errors of the Sanhedrin's: Sifrei says obey a minor error (such as a disagreement between you and the Sanhedrin on how to interpret a source), but Yerushalmi says to disobey a major error (such as the Sanhedrin's grossly overlooking an entire critical source). But of those three opinions (one, that Sifrei and Bavli/Yerushalmi disagree; two, that they are directed at different kinds of people; three, that they are speaking of different kinds of errors), the first two of them seem to annul the entire existence of the Sanhedrin; when taken to their logical conclusions, they seem to say that no one should ever obey the Sanhedrin when they disagree with it.

Update: In the comments, here, Larry Lennhoff directed me to here. There, two commentaries are translated, one by the RambaN - summarizing the simple and traditional view of obeying the Sanhedrin - and the other by the Yad ha-Melekh (a commentary on the RambaM), summarizing the view of disobedience which I here, in my blog, am favoring. The RambaM, in Hilkhot Mamrim 1:2, says,

ב כָּל מִי שְׁאֵינוּ עוֹשֶׂה בְּהוֹרָאָתָן--עוֹבֵר בְּלֹא תַעֲשֶׂה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "לֹא תָסוּר, מִכָּל הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר-יַגִּידוּ לְךָ" (ראה דברים יז,יא). וְאֵין לוֹקִין עַל לָאו זֶה, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁנִּתַּן לְאַזְהָרַת מִיתַת בֵּית דִּין: שֶׁכָּל חָכָם שֶׁמּוֹרֶה עַל דִּבְרֵיהֶם--מִיתָתוֹ בְּחָנֵק, שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "וְהָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר-יַעֲשֶׂה בְזָדוֹן, לְבִלְתִּי שְׁמֹעַ . . ." (דברים יז,יב).

(My translation) Anyone who does not act according to their (the Sanhedrin's) ruling, violates a negative commandment, as it says, "Do not depart from any word which they shall tell you" (cf. Deuteronomy 17:11). And we do not lash (violators) for (violation of) this negative commandment, because it is warned in the Torah as being liable for capital punishment, i.e. death by the court, for every sage who rebels against their (the Sanhedrin's) words (i.e. the zaqen mamre), his death is by strangulation, as it says, "And the man who shall do deliberately, without listening..." (Deuteronomy 17:12).

Back to the Yad la-Melekh, commenting on RambaM, he says,

…It is clear that according to the understanding of Rashi and the Mizrachi the intent of the Sifre [that one must listen to the rabbis even when it apparently involves Torah prohibitions] is against the view of the Babylonian Talmud and also against the Yerushalmi. Furthermore since the Rambam omits mention of this Sifre therefore we have only the halachic view that is explicit in the Bavli and Yerushalmi. Thus all halachic rulings which appear to contradict the words of the Torah e.g., eating prohibited fats or killing an innocent man – irrespective as to the authority of the rabbi giving the ruling they are not to be accepted. It is stated explicitly in the Yerushalmi and also the Bavli that if someone errs in this matter and thinks it is an obligation to listen to these rabbis to eat fat prohibited by the Torah because he thinks it is a mitzva to always obey the rabbis – this individual is obligated to bring a sacrifice as he would be for eating any Torah prohibited food in error.

(End of Update)

All the arguments against Haredi Da'at Torah (see Professor Lawrence Kaplan: (1), (2)) apply to the Sanhedrin too, albeit to a different degree. That is, while Haredi rabbis are very wrong and provide no justifications for their insanity other than "because I said so", by contrast, the Sanhedrin would, hopefully, be only a little bit wrong and actually try to justify itself, but the principle of the Sanhedrin is the same as with Da'at Torah. If we reject one, why not the other?

All this means that the entire institution of zaqen mamre (the rebellious elder wo disobeys the Sanhedrin) is like ben sorer u'moreh (the rebellious child, whom Hazal said was never meant to be punished in real life, with the Torah's treatment of that subject being an educational lesson of an ideal but unrealistic concept).

Update: my friend Michael Berg showed me this, a passage (and commentary thereon) from the Mei ha-Shiloah, the Ishbitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, discussing Korah. The Mei ha-Shiloah writes,

"The entire congregation is holy, and God is in their midst; why then do you lift yourselves up above the congregation of the Lord." (Num 16:3). Here Korach makes the claim that there is no hierarchy in Israel where one individual ought to be set higher than his fellow man, for God is in the midst of the entire congregation. That is to say that Hashem dwells within everyone equally, as it is written in the midrash (Talmud Bavli, Ta'anit, 31a) "In the future, the Holy One Blessed Be He will make a dance for all the righteous." "Dance" refers to a circle, in which no one is closer [to the center] than his fellow man. And Korach claimed that this vision was already realized at the time!?!

The blogger there, Elli Sacks, comments, saying,

wo weeks ago, in Parashat Be-ha'alotekha, we read about the story of Eldad and Meidad. As you will recall (Numbers: Chapter 11) the 70 elders of Israel had traveled from the Israelite camp to the Tent of Meeting where the Spirit of the LORD descended upon them, endowing them with the power of prophecy. At the same time, the Spirit of the LORD descended upon two additional men -- Eldad and Meidad -- who had remained within the Israelite encampment, and who also began to speak the word of God. Moshe's second-in-command, Yehoshua Bin Nun, feared that this "extra-territorial" prophesying represented a threat to the hierarchical power structure within Israelite society and asked Moshe to forbid them from doing so. But Moshe's reaction towards Eldad and Meidad is not only not hostile, it seems downright giddy. "Would that all of Hashem's people were prophets, and that Hashem had put His Spirit upon them!"

Does not the voice of Moshe in Be-ha'alotekha sound similar to Korach's voice in our parasha? Perhaps Moshe was echoing a sentiment that was popular in the Israelite camp. After all, hadn't the entire congregation achieved the level of prophecy at Sinai, when God spoke directly to each and every person present? If only the Children of Israel could have maintained that level of intimacy, that level of connection, there would have been no need for priests or elders or for political leadership. Moshe could have retired to the quiet of the Beit Midrash, learning Torah all day instead of constantly dealing with the enfuriating complaints of the maddening crowd.

So why is it that Moses was so offended by Korach's challenge? Why wasn't he wooed by the vision Korach proffered from the conclusion to Masekhet Ta'anit:

"Ulla Biraah said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: In the future the Holy One, Blessed be He, will make a dance of all the righteous people, and he will sit among them, in the middle of the circle, in the Garden of Eden; and each and every one will point with his finger toward Him, as it says: He shall say on that day, "Behold! This is our God; we hoped to Him and He saved us; this is Hashem to Whom we hoped; let us exult and be glad in His salvation."

The answer according to the Ishbitzer is that Korach was essentially correct in his claim, but, as so often is the case in life, his problem was one of timing. Korach expresses the true egalitarian ideal that will be realized in the End of Days when the righteous will dance around the Holy One in a circle, and everyone will commune in equal proximity to Hashem who will then truly be "in their midst." Nevertheless, it was patently clear to Moshe that this was NOT that time and that no matter the legitimacy of his ideals, Korach was jumping the gun.

It seems to me that we go a bit further: Exodus 20:15 states, "And they said unto Moses: 'Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.' Deuteronomy 5:5 has Moses recalling that event, saying, "I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to declare unto you the word of the LORD; for ye were afraid because of the fire, and went not up into the mount." The people asked God to not speak directly to them anymore, but to use Moses as His intermediary. And what was the result? According to the Kuzari, the Golden Calf was not an attempt to replace God, but to replace Moses; when Moses failed to return from the mountain, the people were terrified at the prospect of losing their intermediary between them and God. In other words, the desire to set up a religious hierarchy to interpose between man and God, resulted in idolatry. And with good reason: how could a desire to interpose something between man and God result in anything but idolatry?(End of Update)

So much for the theoretical aspect; let me ask practically: what need do we have for the Sanhedrin? All of the problems in the Orthodox world today, are not due to disunity and lack of a central authority, but rather due to the ignorance and/or ignoring of the mesorah (tradition) and authentic halakhah. Our problem is not that there are two Torahs in Israel (cf. the houses of Hillel and Shammai), but that some of these Torahs out today, are ridiculous perversions of the true Torah. The reinstitution of the Sanhedrin wouldn't solve any problems. Reinstituting the Sanhedrin would merely provide one party with a monopoly, and political science, game theory, and public choice theory tell us quite amply what happens when a political party gains a monopoly and lacks any competition. In short, they become hideously corrupted; witness: the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. The last thing we need to do is provide any party with a monopoly. At least today, despite all the insanity in the Jewish world, one has the ability to disagree and follow his opinion, the one he believes he is correct. We need to increase the possibility by disbanding the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, not decrease it by turning the Rabbinate into a Sanhedrin.

The only need I would see for the Sanhedrin, is to legislate for the Beit ha-Miqdash (Temple)'s `avodah (sacrificial order), as there is no way to privatize the Temple. But Rabbi Avraham Yitzhaq ha-Qohen Kook and Rabbi Haim David Halevi said that sacrifices will not exist in the future and that they will be annulled, and if so, then there remains no need whatsoever for a Sanhedrin either. The historical institution would merely be like kingship or sacrifices: a concession to primitive, ignorant men of the "God speaks in the language of men" and "every prophet speaks in his own style" sort. Honestly, is my saying the Sanhedrin won't exist, any more extreme than saying qorbanot (sacrifices) won't? But Rav Kook and Rabbi Halevi said qorbanot indeed would not exist in the future! Now, the Torah has merely a few sentences about the Sanhedrin, while the entire book of Vayiqra (Leviticus) wasn't enough for qorbanot, and it had to spill over into Shemot (Exodus)!!! So if we can say that sacrifices - the subject of more than a fifth of the Torah! - will cease, then what is the danger of suggesting the same for the Sanhedrin too, which occupies merely a sentence or two in the Torah? And conceptually, what's the difference between ben sorer u'moreh and zaqen mamre? My point is that I do not believe my proposal is really so radical.

Regarding the Torah making concessions to primitive men, let me quote Rav Kook on this general subject, (Igrot 478, translated in Tzvi Feldman, Rav A. Y. Kook - Selected Letters (Ma'aliot Publications of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe; Ma'aleh Adumim, Israel, 1986), pp. 17f: [] are Feldman's, {} mine):

And if we find in the Torah certain things which other people think were based on the widely accepted notions of the distant past, but which are incompatible with the scientific knowledge of today, indeed, we do not know at all if today's research is absolute truth, and even if it is true, certainly there is also some important and sacred objective for which certain matters [in the Torah] needed to be presented in the commonly accepted description and not the exact one, as is plain in the spiritual concepts and in certain foundations of practice, for "the Torah provided for man's evil passions" {i.e., the Torah made certain laws as concessions to man's nature} or "to make [its words] intelligible {by using human idioms and language usage}," and upon all of them appears the living endearing divine wisdom.

Similarly, Rav Kook's Eder Hayakar (pp. 42-43, translated in Ben Zion Bokser, The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook (Amity House: Amity, New York, 1988.), p. 48, "Assyriology and the Bible"):

As to the similarities in teaching [between the Torah and the Code of Hammurabi], it was already made clear in the days of Maimonides, and before him in the teachings of the Talmudic sages, that prophecy reckons with man's nature, for it is its mission to raise his nature and his disposition by divine guidance, as is implied in the statement that "the commandments were only given so as to refine the nature of people" (Genesis Rabbah 44:1). Hence, whatever educational elements there were in before the giving of the Torah, which gained a following among the [Jewish] people and the world, if they only had a basis in morality and it was possible to raise them up to a high moral level - the Torah retained them.

According to the Midrash Rabbah on Devarim and Rabbi Yitzhaq Abarbanel, and the simplest interpretation of the book of Samuel, all this applied to kingship in the Torah (an opinion in the Talmud says that no, kingship is not a concession as these other sources believe but rather an ideal); why not to the Sanhedrin too? Why not say that like sacrifices and kingship, the Sanhedrin too was a concession to primitive man who needed an authority to compel him?

Furthermore, to quote Professor Marc Shapiro here, Rav Kook also says (to pastiche several disparate statements of his):

ואם תפול שאלה על איזה משפט שבתורה, שלפי מושגי המוסר יהיה נראה שצריך להיות מובן באופן אחר, אז אם באמת ע"פ ב"ד הגדול יוחלט שזה המשפט לא נאמר כ"א באותם התנאים שכבר אינם, ודאי ימצא ע"ז מקור בתורה.

כשהמוסר הטבעי מתגבר בעולם, באיזה צורה שתהיה, חייב כל אדם לקבל לתוכו אותו מממקורו, דהיינו מהתגלותו בעולם, ואת פרטיו יפלס על פי ארחות התורה. אז יעלה בידו המוסר הטהור אמיץ ומזוקק.

כל התורה הזאת של מלחמת רשות לא נאמרה כ"א לאנושיות שלא נגמרה בחינוך.

כל לב יבין על נקלה כי רק לאומה שלא באה לתכלית חינוך האנושי, או יחידים מהם, יהיה הכרח לדבר כנגד יצר הרע ע"י לקיחת יפת תואר בשביה באופן המדובר. ומזה נלמד שכשם שעלינו להתרומם מדין יפת תואר, כן נזכה להתרומם מעיקר החינוך של מלחמת רשות, ונכיר שכל כלי זיין אינו אלא לגנאי.

To translate myself:

And if a question arises about any law of the Torah, that according to ethical notions it will need to be understood in another manner, then if indeed the Sanhedrin decides that this law was made only for conditions that are no longer extant, then indeed a source for this [ethical notion] will be found in the Torah.

When natural[-law] morality strengthens in the world, in whatever form it will, every man is obligated to incorporate it into his own ethos from its source - namely its manifestation in the world - and its details will be explicated according to the way of the Torah. Then pure morality will arise into his grasp, strong and purified.

This entire teaching of milhemet reshut [voluntary wars of aggression, which the Torah permits] was said only for a mankind that had not yet completed its education.

Every heart will understand easily that only for a nation that had not come to its humanistic-educational conclusion - or individuals thereof - could need a concessionary law for the selfish human inclination via the taking of a beautiful woman (yafet toar) captive [in war] in the manner spoken of [in the Torah]. And from this we will learn that just as it is incumbent upon to rise beyond the law of taking a woman captive in war, so too we will merit to rise beyond the educational principle of voluntary wars (milhemet reshut), and we will recognize that every vessel of war is disgraceful.

Rav Kook is saying that we must reinterpret the Torah in accordance with new ethical notions. The Talmud itself already says that the law of taking a woman captive in war, is not an ideal but merely a concession, and Rav Kook extends this to the law of voluntary wars of aggression, which the Torah also permits. Rav Kook even says that any new ethical notion in the world must be incorporated by everyone, with the Torah explicating its details. I believe individual liberty and freedom to be one such new principle; to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson's Politics:

The tendencies of the times favour the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints. The movement in this direction has been very marked in modern history. Much has been blind and discreditable, but the nature of the revolution is not affected by the vices of the revolters; for this is a purely moral force. It was never adopted by any party in history, neither can be. It separates the individual from all party, and unites him, at the same time, to the race.

Similarly, Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience":

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

So at most, we'll have a Beit ha-Miqdash that functions as nothing more than a beit ha-knesset (synagogue) for tefilah (prayer), and a Sanhedrin that does nothing more than decide which siddurim (prayerbooks) to buy and which building maintenance and janitorial staff to hire. Update: I forgot that according to Rav Kook, while the sacrifices cease, there will still be flour (minhah) offerings, according to him. So perhaps we will still have a Sanhedrin to decide the laws of flour offerings. But my point is the same: we will, at most, have a very tiny, minimalistic Sanhedrin with almost no responsibilities or authority.

Thus, in my view: in the future, we will no longer have a Sanhedrin. There is simply no need for it.