Q&A: Renewing Ordination for the Sanhedrin through the Ten Lost Tribes
Renewing Ordination for the Sanhedrin through the Ten Lost Tribes
Question
Hello, and happy holiday.
In the holiday issue of “Kolmus”, an article was published about Rabbi Yisrael of Shklov—the author of Pe’at HaShulchan, one of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon—and the involvement of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, concerning the search for the Ten Lost Tribes. Rabbi Yisrael searched for them because they supposedly have an ordained Sanhedrin, and if they would ordain some of our sages, we could reestablish the Sanhedrin. The event took place in the year 1830.
This is Rabbi Yisrael’s wording in his letter:
“Let us seek that which our soul loves. For it is well known publicly from the mouths of our holy rabbis that before our righteous Messiah comes, there must be an ordained religious court in the Land of Israel. And because of our many sins, through the exiles and the burden of the harsh decrees, ordination has ceased. And it is clear Jewish law that one who is ordained must be ordained by one who is already ordained. And the Holy One, blessed be He, has promised that there shall be a great religious court, as it is said: ‘And I will restore your judges…’ And when we heard clearly that they have an ordained religious court among them, from the testimony of ordained men, for they judge capital cases… Let them therefore choose several of their ordained sages and let them come to the Land of Israel, the inheritance of our fathers, and ordain Torah scholars, so that there may be an ordained religious court in the Land of Israel, upon which the beginning of redemption depends.”
Since I know that you deal a great deal with problems that Jewish law today is incapable of solving because there is no organized body that can make difficult decisions, I think the matter could be solved with the help of the Ten Lost Tribes.
Maybe we, the site’s readers, can organize and fund the trip. Would you yourself agree to go? It seems to me that you are suitable in every respect. If not, it would be possible to find another person with the necessary qualifications who would agree to search for the Ten Lost Tribes, and it would be worthwhile for him to be a Torah scholar as well, so that he could receive ordination from them.
I believe that all the site’s readers would be more than happy to help with money and in other ways to make this important matter succeed.
I would also be glad to receive positive responses from the readers.
Answer
I don’t know whether this is a serious question. I assume it isn’t, but for the sake of discussion I’ll assume that it is.
I have no interest in looking for ordained sages from the Ten Lost Tribes, even if such people exist (and I doubt they do). Those ordained sages know nothing at all about the Oral Torah as it developed after they had already gone into exile. I am also not looking to have ordained sages today. First let us have sovereignty so that ordained sages would actually have something to do, and let there be sages who are worthy of being ordained.
Discussion on Answer
I haven’t checked the reliability of the letter, but even if it was written, I do indeed disagree. Is there some problem with that?
There really aren’t all that many left from the Ten Lost Tribes anymore… The Jews of Djerba have a tradition that they are descendants of the tribe of Zebulun. Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, and Levi are already with us… (see I Chronicles 9). It seems to me that most of Israel is already with us.
Why isn’t it serious?
Do you disagree with the author of Pe’at HaShulchan and with Rabbi Akiva Eiger?
They believed in the existence of the Ten Lost Tribes, and in their view there is no problem with the fact that they are not familiar with our Oral Torah (or perhaps they assumed that they are familiar with it).
Maybe in their opinion, if it turns out that they have different Jewish laws, we need to accept their view, because their laws were established by an ordained religious court?