Why this word is great
SANHEDRIN — [Noun] The supreme judicial and ecclesiastical assembly of ancient Judaism, comprising 71 sages in Jerusalem or 23 judges in provincial cities. From Late Hebrew סַנְהֶדְרִין (sanhedrín), from Ancient Greek συνέδριον (sunédrion, "sitting together, council"), from σύν (sún, "with") + ἕδρα (hédra, "seat"). Unlike the generic Greek synedrion (unburdened by holy writ) or the enduring rabbinic beth din (a court for contracts and kashrut), the Sanhedrin was the sovereign convergence of law, lineage, and divine mandate. It is the cool weight of a stone seat in the Chamber of Hewn Stone, the exacting debate over a point of law as binding as prophecy, and the palpable heat of a capital case as lamplight flickered over seventy-one faces—a vanished architecture of order whose empty space still defines a faith, a testament that the most enduring power is often the ghost of a judgment no longer rendered.