From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

Can one person change the world?That is the question at the end of the tractate Sanhedrin. The word "Sanhedrin" means the supreme judicial, civic, legal, religious authority in ancient Israel. The Talmudic tractate Sanhedrin is about justice-the human beings, institutions, procedures and protocols, evidentiary rules, safeguards, that enable human beings to create and sustain a just society.Because justice in this world is so elusive, Sanhedrin's final chapter deals with other-worldly matters of the world to come (olam ha'ba) and the resurrection of the dead (techiyat hameitim). If we do not get justice in this world, perhaps we might get it in the next. Impossible to prove or disprove concepts like the world to come and resurrection of the dead might be a consolation for those living in a current reality that is, as Thomas Hobbes put it, "nasty, brutish and short."Justice is so urgent. Justice is so hard. Sometimes we fail. Which leads to the last question of this tractate: Can one