Parashat Shoftim

Years ago I used to live in a certain county in northern New Jersey known for it’s colorful political tradition. Well… actually for its corrupt political tradition. In fact, one year a mayor, convicted for graft and corruption ran for re-election from his jail cell- and would have been re-elected had the courts not ruled that an incarcerated felon could not participate in a public election!

This is not an isolated case- many unscrupulous pols, after narrowly escaping prosecution on some technicality are re-elected each year. And many voters do not seem to care; as long as their own personal needs are being met, they will continue to pull the lever along party lines. Citizens throughout the world continue to be abused by elected or self imposed leaders, and many have suffered a moral weakening, and have resigned themselves to the status quo. I often think about the classic line delivered by Joseph Welch at the infamous McCarthy hearings, when he turned to Senator Joseph McCarthy and exclaimed, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

As one astute political commentator writes, ” When I considered all this, the more closely I studied the politicians and the laws and customs of the day, and the older I grew, the more difficult it seemed to me to govern rightly……. At the same time law and morality were deteriorating at an alarming rate…… I was forced, in fact, to the belief that the only hope of finding justice for society or for the individual lay in true philosophy, and that mankind will have no respite from trouble until either real philosophers gain political power or politicians become by some miracle true philosophers”.

Plato, The Republic

In this weeks parasha, Shoftim, the Torah offers a vision of a society where rulers would govern by a philosophy of  divine truth, starting with a judicial system:

You shall set up judges and law enforcement officials for yourself in all your gates that the Lord, your God, is giving you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people [with] righteous judgment. (Deut. 16:18).

The community is addressed in the second person singular, as this must be a unified commitment to submit to an independent judicial body. This system must be free of any societal baggage:

You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show favoritism, and you shall not take a bribe, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts just words. (Deut. 16:19).

We already learned of the Torah’s mandate of equal justice in Parashat Kedoshim (Lev. 19:15), as addressed to individuals. Here we learn that that the judicial system must follow the same dictates.

Finally, an enigmatic instruction that highlights the responsibility of a Torah based society:

Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and possess the land the Lord, your God, is giving you. (Deut. 16:20)

As you can imagine, the double language is puzzling. There are many explanations given by the classic  and contemporary commentators. Rabbi Yissocher Frand quotes Rav Elya Meir Bloch (of the famous Telze Yeshiva) as teaching, “”the pursuit of righteousness must also be pursued with righteousness”. We are not merely being taught to run after justice. We are told to run after justice with justice.

Perhaps the double language is telling us we need to think outside of the box, to stretch ourselves in the application of justice. There is a classic midrash that illustrates a creative approach to solving a legal dispute.

Alexander the Great once visited the community of Afriki and wished to observe its judicial system. Two men came before the king for justice. The first said, “I purchased a plot of land from this man, and when I dug to lay the foundation of a home, I found a treasure buried there. I only bought the land, not the treasure, therefore it is not mine.” The seller said, “I too am fearful of the biblical prohibition of ‘lo tigzo”- do not steal’ and I too do not want it back unless it is definitely mine.” The king (judge) asked the buyer if he had a son, he answered “yes”. The seller answered positively to having a daughter. “Wonderful,” said the king, “let them marry and share the treasure.”

A wonderfully creative solution that leaves both litigants as partners in a just conclusion. By the way, the midrash concludes with a comparison to the legal system of the Greek Empire.

Alexander looked at this scene with amazement. The king asked him, “What are you so amazed at? Did I not judge well?” Alexander replied, “Yes, you did.” “And if the same case came before a court in your land what would you have done?” asked the king. Alexander replied, “We would have beheaded both of them and the treasure would have fallen to the royal treasury.” (Vayikra Rabba 27:1)

The Torah’s legal system is a partnership between G-d and society , and at the end of the day, all litigants must accept the outcome as divine mandate.

And you shall do according to the word they tell you, from the place the Lord will choose, and you shall observe to do according to all they instruct you. According to the law they instruct you and according to the judgment they say to you, you shall do; you shall not divert from the word they tell you, either right or left. (Deut.. 17:10-11)

The findings of a Torah based court ARE Torah, the people must accept the judgement, knowing that the will of G-d has been fulfilled.

The previous verse is the source for the concept of Rabbinic law that permeates jewish life. The blessing we make on lighting Hanukah menorot, or before reading the Megillah on Purim, contain the words, “  Blessed are you, ……..asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu, with your commandments…”, yet these mitzvoth are rabbinic in origin. By accepting  rabbinic law as the will of G-d we are following a torah commandment. Many mistakenly assume that since certain mitzvoth are of of rabbinic origin (m’d'rabbanan) that they may be treated as optional. Nothing could be further from the truth. (The rabbis, however, did legislate that in matters of human dignity certain rabbinic laws could be suspended as discussed in Talmud Berachot 17b).  As such, the Torah teaches that rabbinic rulings were to be followed explicitly.

I once saw New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter smile after taking a pitch for strike three. The replay showed that the umpire had made a bad call. Jeter, a consummate professional smiled because he knew that the system had to work with an ultimate authority, and even though there may be occasional human error, the rules depended on a communal adherence to the process.

The Sanhedrin, the Torah based court during the times the Temple stood, could occasionally err as well.

The great  medieval  Ramban (Nachmanides)  writes that even if you think in your heart that they are mistaken, you must still do as they command you. He writes, “[ even if the decision is disturbing] …you are to say,’ The Lord who instituted the commandments commanded that I perform all the mitzvoth in a way that they( the rabbis) teach me to do. He gave me the Torah as taught by them, even if they were to err.”

The buck stops here.

Next the Torah introduces the concept of  Jewish political power, as exemplified by the King. The King and the Jewish courts are given an indisputable philosophical truth, the Torah itself. But the extended exile of the Jewish people has seen a loss of a unified Jewish legal presence, and every year seems to bring a wider divide in the various approaches for interpreting  and implementing Jewish law. We are awash in a sea of shitot (interpretations of Jewish law) and p’sakim (directives).

We continue to pray thrice daily, in our weekday Amidah prayer, ” Hashivainu shoftainu k’rishona, restore our judges as in  previous years“, for a time when the Jewish people will again be able to serve their creator in the singular, as one people.

This week marks the beginning of the month of Elul, the period of introspection leading up to Rosh Hashanah and  Yom Kippur, where we are privileged to appear before the real ultimate authority, that of the Supreme Heavenly Court. May we approach our days of judgment confident in knowing that the philosophy governing our spiritual lives is the ultimate source of truth, free from any political interference  or corruption, and that we will never strike out in a true heart to heart encounter with our creator.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Greg