RABBINIC AUTHORITY- POWER SHARING
traditions of the past while the laity from the power which wealth and status provided. Various efforts were made to strengthen the power of the rabbinate or to at least avoid conflict. However, Joel Sirkes saw to it that some limited power continued in the hands of the laity. He wished, however, to retain ultimate control over each community for the rabbi?’ Joel Sirkes , Moses Isserles and Solomon Luria restrained the power of the laity by stating that the lay judges should not exceed their limited knowledge.”
In Germany in the fifteenth century and later, efforts were made to deal with broad communal questions through synods. Almost all of these contained representatives of both the rabbinate and the laity. The texts themselves, therefore, indicated the kind of compromises worked out. A greater problem was that of the “Court Jew ” who had the ear of the ruler but operated outside the normative framework of the Jewish community.” Here the rabbinate and the laity, which was less powerful, tried to unite in order to defend themselves against such individuals. Some“Court Jews ” were unwilling to recognize the jurisdiction of a rabbinic court and so it was extremely difficult to deal with these powerful, wealthy Jews . This problem arose again and again as various synods attempted to deal with it and with the attendant issues of taxation and rights of settlement.” In the sixteenth century, lay leaders such as Josel of Rosheim emerged and the struggle with the “Court Jew ” became serious. We should remember that some were learned, a few were rabbis, but most were able business leaders.
From the Emancipation to the Present Time
The clash between rabbinic authority and lay power becomes most easily documented in Napoleon's Assembly of Notables and Sanhedrin.® There we find a large group of laymen and a small number of rabbis who struggled to answer the questions posed by Napoleon. In issues which were clearly religious, the rabbinate prevailed or managed to work out an appropriate
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