[Avodah] Who is a Talmid Chacham

[Doron Beckerman]

I concede that there is a Machlokes Rishonim as to whether the Shoftim
themselves were part of the Shalsheles Hakabbalah. The Rambam in his
Hakdamah to Mishneh Torah, which I took as authoritative, conspicously
skips over them, since he maintained that the Shalsheles went through the
heads of Beis Din - Pinchas to Eli. See Avodas Hamelech there. (The Meiri
to Avos suggests two options on the matter.)



By the way, if you look in the Ritva to Rosh Hashanah ad loc. you will
see that he interpreted the Beraisa that Moshe, Aharon, Shmuel and Yiftach
etc. were not mentioned as Sanhedrin, but as Neviim and Melachim, as I
explained.

B'kitzur, it might even boil down to a Machlokes Bavli and Yerushalmi
(which in Rosh Hashanah there says "Beis Dino Shel Yiftach), but the "Psak"
we have from the Rambam in his preface to MT is that the Shoftim were not
heads of the Sanhedrin and/or components of the Shalsheles Hakabbalah.