The story of the Sanhedrin is the story of Jewish power and powerlessness. Chazal depict the Sanhedrin, the legislative and judicial body embodying the greatest Torah leaders and representing the Jewish people, as leading Klal Yisrael from time immemorial.
However, the Greek term Sanhedrin reflects a new name given to the zekeinim we know from the Torah. So Sanhedrin represents Jewish ability to determine law and justice, even as it is subjugated under an outside imperial culture.
As Chazal tell us, the Sanhedrin stops functioning at some point – exiled from the Mikdash and Yerushalayim, ultimately closing its Yavneh wing. The Sanhedrin’s decline forecloses an operative death penalty in Judaism, and blocks various reinterpretations and changes of halacha. (See, e.g., Rambam, Hilchot Mamrim, perek 2.) The lack of a Sanhedrin, therefore, means a decline in rabbinic power.
In the modern period, as well, Sanhedrin correlates with power, powerlessness, and empire. In 1806, Napolean convened “the Great Sanhedrin,” asking rabbis to answer questions on behalf of the Jewish people, and demonstrating their subordination under his new French Empire.
In recent decades, some have attempted to reconvene the Sanhedrin (Rav Maimon and Rav Steinzaltz), following the Rambam’s proscription of how to do so, although these attempts were not terribly successful. Having Jewish autonomy in Israel makes an independent Sanhedrin politically possible, but a major problem remains: To reconvene a group of leading rabbis, we need a consensus as to who those leading rabbis are. Good luck with that!
