[Avodah] Prophet - mashgiach or godol hador?

[Daniel Israel]

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:53:47 -0700 Daniel Eidensohn 
<yadmoshe at 012.net.il> wrote:
>Ramban(Devarim 17:11): Left and Right.  *...because G‑d’s spirit 
is on
>those who serve in His Temple and He does not desert His pious 
ones. 
>G‑d always protects them from error and mistake. 

I assume that the Hebrew here is "ruach hakodesh" (I don't have a 
Chumash at the office) and that that is the basis for your claim 
that Ramban allows involvement of ruach hakodesh in the Sanhedrin.  
However, based on the next sentence, I understand this Ramban to be 
speaking more of a passive hashgacha on psak, i.e., HKB"H will 
prevent them from paskening incorrectly (or, depending on how you 
understand eilu v'eilu, prevent them from going outside a defined 
range of possible psak).  I think this is different from the 
immediate implication of how you phrased your claim, which to me 
sounded like they could consciously "search" ruach hakodesh to find 
answers.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu