Sanhedrin: chapter 1
Sanhedrin 2
Opens Maseches Sanhedrin's Mishnah on court sizes for different cases -- three judges for monetary law, twenty-three for capital and defamation cases, and seventy-one for national decisions like expanding Jerusalem.
Sanhedrin 3
Explores the reasoning behind allowing less expert judges for monetary cases, and derives the requirement of three judges from an extra word in the verse ‘Elokim.'
Sanhedrin 4
A dense sugya comparing Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel on blood-sprinkling counts, the required size of a sukkah's walls, and the four compartments of tefillin.
Sanhedrin 5
Covers what qualifies someone as a mumcheh larabim able to judge without consent, why a Nasi's permission doesn't carry authority in Bavel, and the case of saving someone from a prohibition overriding rabbinic authority.
Sanhedrin 6
Covers whether a judge should encourage compromise over a strict ruling, Aaron's model of peacemaking, and the machloket over whether settlement is obligatory or merely permitted.
Sanhedrin 7
Covers the escalating consequences of theft, the gravity of an improper judgment, and a long list of behavioral and ethical requirements the Torah demands of a judge.
Sanhedrin 8
Covers the requirement to judge without fear, Moshe's rebuke for claiming supreme authority, and the dispute over whether a defamation case (motza shem ra) needs three or twenty-three judges.
Sanhedrin 9
Covers how many judges are needed for a wife accused of infidelity, whether an unspecific warning avoids capital liability, and how contradictory witness testimony is weighed.
Sanhedrin 10
Covers testimony involving relatives, the derivation of lashes for false witnesses, and the three-judge requirement for declaring a leap month.
Sanhedrin 11
Covers Rabban Gamliel's seven sages and Shmuel HaKatan's prophetic story, the end of open prophecy, and the three classic reasons (goats, grain, fruit) a leap month gets added to the calendar.
Sanhedrin 12
Covers the three classic signs used to decide whether to add a leap month (produce ripeness, animal age, and the season), and the restriction against calculating the leap year before Rosh Hashanah.
Sanhedrin 13
Covers the threshold of missing days that justifies intercalating a leap year, and how the timing of the new season (tekufah) factors into the calendar decision.
Sanhedrin: 14
A Sanhedrin sugya on how semichah (rabbinic ordination) is performed, whether it can be granted by a single judge or only a full Sanhedrin, the dispute over whether it can take effect outside Eretz Yisrael, and the Mishnah's requirements for the size of a Sanhedrin.
Sanhedrin 15
Covers the court-size requirements for evaluating damages and judging an animal that killed a person, and why Yisro's pre-Sinai court serves as a halachic precedent.
Sanhedrin 16
Covers which national-level decisions -- judging a whole tribe, a false prophet, expanding Jerusalem -- require the full Sanhedrin of seventy-one, derived from several biblical verses.
Sanhedrin 17
Covers the verses used to derive the sizes of the Great and Small Sanhedrin, the qualities required of a judge, and how a city's population determines whether it needs its own court.