Q&A: How Does a Religious Court Decide?
How Does a Religious Court Decide?
Question
Seemingly, from the case of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai it comes out that reasoning does not really matter, only numbers. In other words, seemingly a religious court can make up some reasoning, or even make a mistake in its thinking, yet its words are Torah. And basically, who determines who is a religious court? Can a group of ignorant Torah-observant people call themselves a religious court and establish decrees and ordinances with no basis that merely seem reasonable to them, and seemingly their words are Torah? So how does this actually work??
Answer
A strange question. Who decides what counts as a court of law? Can any judge just make up whatever he wants and have it be binding? There are appointment procedures for rabbinical judges and religious courts, and there is law according to which they operate, just like any legal system.