Q&A: Several Questions
Several Questions
Question
A. What is the source in the Written Torah for the authority of the sages to enact laws? (After all, the passage of "If a matter is hidden from you," etc., deals with not knowing the existing law.)
B. What is the answer to the question of how one can be commanded to believe?
C. What is the answer to the claim of the eternity of the world? (If possible, an explanation that even I, in my smallness, can understand.)
D. Regarding your claim that heretics in the past were motivated by their desires—surely one must say that this is what they really thought, for otherwise they are not heretics. If so, why are they not considered coerced?
E. Whom would you appoint to the Sanhedrin nowadays if people asked you? (If possible, names of rabbis.)
Thank you very much.
Answer
A. You decide that it deals only with not knowing the existing law, and I disagree. It is about not knowing the law. Search the site; there have been several discussions here about this.
B. I have no answer. It cannot be done. At most, one can command deepening one's faith or internalizing it.
C. See the second and third notebooks.
D. You assume that if they do not truly believe it, then they are not heretics. But that is not necessary. People sometimes construct theories for themselves because of their desires. It happens every day.
E. It's impossible.