We put on a Sanhedrin only people of great stature and appearance, who are Chachamim, old, understand witchcraft, and know all 70 languages, so that Beis Din will not need to hear testimony through an interpreter.
The Rambam understands that they need to some medicine and other wisdom as well as Torah.
I find these 2 criteria fascinating (the requirements to know languages and general knowledge), as these 2 disqualify almost all of the Eastern European gedolim from the last 200 years as well as all of the current Israeli Gedolim. Most of them only speak Yiddish, or Hebrew, they do/did not even speak the vernacular (Polish or Russian or English) let alone 70 languages. In addition they had/have absolutely no secular knowledge to speak of. Additionally, Rabbanim like R' Steinman (and in fact all of the previous/current Israeli Gedolim) would be excluded as they are too old, while the Chazon Ish and Lubavitcher Rebbe among others would be excluded because they had no children. Who is left?
So when Moshiach comes will there be anyone qualified to sit on the Sanhedrin?
In fact, given this criteria it is doubtful if there ever was anyone in history who qualified as the ability to speak 70 languages is super rare if not found at all, For example Google most languages spoken by a single person and look at the results.
Yeridos hadoros :)
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