People are impressed with decisive leaders. We like to know that the people in charge have a clear idea of what to do. Unfortunately, that’s not always possible. Sometimes we’re caught between Scylla and Charybdis (I’m also on the Odyssey bandwagon.), or as David Hamelech described it: MIN HAMEITZAR (‘out of the narrow straights’). There is no good or definitive solution to the conundrum.

Then what do we do? Well, actually, this week’s Torah reading answers that very question: If a case is too baffling for you to decide, be it a controversy over homicide, civil law, or assault—matters of dispute in your courts—you shall promptly repair to the place that the ETERNAL your God will have chosen (Devarim 17:9).

In other words, go to Yerushalayim, and the great scholars and leaders there will tell you what to do. Then your obligation is clear: You shall do precisely as they instruct you…do not deviate right or left (verses 10 & 11).

Sounds fine to me. There’s a problem, and the Torah provides a clear solution to said problem. Well, maybe.

This system seems to work well when we have the Great Court sitting in proximity to the Beit Hamikdash. Then the Sanhedrin votes and we get a solution to the issue. Sadly, we have not had a Sanhedrin since the Romans closed down the final incarnation of the Great Court in T’veria in 425 CE. What do we do now?

Before we go on, I must interject a caveat. There are many authorities who claim that........

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