ABSTRACT
The medieval halachists sought to legitimatize the authority of the community, with those benefitting directly from this being the elders of the community who required this support despite their status as scholars. A similar dynamic is revealed in the famous responsum of Rabbi Judah Ha-Cohen and Rabbi Eliezer ha-Gadol (eleventh century), a responsum that establishes at length and in detail the authority of the community in various spheres. Granting broad powers to the community and its representatives called for a conceptual-juridical development of the sources available to the rabbis, a step that was also necessary in order to meet the exigencies of time and place. In any case, it is important to note the central role of the elders and the leadership even in the Sephardic documents treated by Albeck. It is true, perhaps, that halakhic theory sees the community legislating with the consent of its leadership.
