The new tractate we began this week, Tractate Sanhedrin, focuses on the role of judges and courts in Jewish law. Fittingly, it is named after the body that held supreme judicial power in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple period and beyond. The Great Sanhedrin was a body of 71 judges sitting in Jerusalem; it appointed various Lesser Sanhedrins, made up of 23 judges, to hear cases in the towns and provinces of Judea. The Great Sanhedrin survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and continued to meet in other locations until the fourth century CE.Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
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