understanding democracy

> Democracy is unJewish

Clearly, Judaism is not against democracy in society in general. I presume we are pragmatic – whatever system produces tzedek and chesed should be fine. Democracy wouldn’t work well for most of human history as most population could not read the ballot! R Feinstein and many others are/were very positive towards US, for example, especially those who like R Moshe experienced Soviet oppression.

Now, you are free to build a halachik state in EY, but we have a reality that other enterprising and brave people built their own community with rules. You are free to join or have your own – we had this during first BM … But if you chose to live in their state, you better understand what the rules are, and check & balances seem to be a pattern that works everywhere.

Note that halachik government is also not a dictatorship. There is clear separation of powers: melech, sanhedrin, kohen godol. There is federal structure – courts of shevatim, and even electoral college: is the majority based on population or on number of shevatim. See horayos for details.

apparently, Jewish monarchy is not automatic – from pesukim (confirmed by commentaries), it comes based on explicit – democratic! – request from the people. As Bush-2 used to say – “one person, one vote, one time”.

Interestingly, Jewish law seems not to like temporary appointments – halakha is we don’t dismiss someone until they are totally unfit. Position deserves respect … This is opposite to modern constant elections, that probably go back to Roman republic where they distributed power to multiple positions. The most powerful position (dictator) was for just one year.

As to building roads and making local business laws, it is discussed in Bava Basra about butchers slashing skins/tires to one who refused to join an oligopoly: if there is a chacham in town, he should decide. If not, they are justified to decide as a democracy within the guild.

ZSK> The Sanhedrin is a legislature crossed with a judiciary (at least for very specific capital crime cases). That’s one branch, possibly two in one.
There is a King. That’s a second branch.

Sanhedrin is the head of the court system.
Kohanim are the third branch – kohen godol paskens for himself and for Beis Hamikdash, see Horayos (Really, a short maseches worth looking at!).
There is also federal system – there are tribal courts, and counting “majority” may mean either by number of people in tribes or by number of tribes.

> Techinically the king is subject to the Sanhedrin, although the Sanhedrin doesn’t typically act against it because a king can do what he wants – more or less anyway

King can act outside of Sanhedrin, he can do justice without having witnesses and court days. King also has privileges when called to court. As you are saying, sometimes Kings pushed it. Shimon b Shetach wanted to rule against the (present in court) King but his colleagues were afraid.

> I suspect a large number of people here have never actually considered what a state governed by Halacha means and what the implications are.

Right, many areas of halocha are under-developed when things are not practical. Chofetz Chaim called to increase learning of kedoshim in anticipation of BM3. Kal vehomer, we need to increase learning of things that became a reality. It does not matter whether we like current state or not, Bava Ben Buta and Shimon b Shetach, and Ishayahu had to deal with governments far worse than the current one, so we need to learn halocha how to deal with it.

Well, it was right there in the parsha Shoftim – first laws about judges and police; then kings; then kohanim. R Hirsh says specifically that these are 3 parts of Torah political system. I doubt that R Hirsh was influenced by American system to make such a comparison, I don’t think Europeans were paying much attention to American democracy at the time. But maybe some of the European thinkers at the time wrote about separation of powers and that influenced R Hirsh to make a comparison? do we have older sources for this understanding of Torah politics, predating modern times?