Noah Klein

Eden Sadra

The following Devar Torah was written by Year 9 students Eden Sadra and Noah Klein and presented by them in this week’s High School tefillot.

Rabbi Daniel Siegel 

At Mt Sinai, God called upon the Israelites to be a holy people, partners with God in creating a world of justice for all. Shoftim, the name of this parashah, means ‘Judges’. In this parashah, the Israelites are on the banks of the Jordan, almost at the Promised Land, when God tells the Israelites to appoint judges and officers so they can begin to administer this justice. God’s final instruction to them is among the Torah‘s most famous lines tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, or ‘Justice, justice, you shall pursue.’

Why ‘Justice, justice, shall you pursue?’ The second ‘justice’ must have some meaning. Some say ‘justice’ is repeated for emphasis, to teach that pursuing justice is among the most important things a person can do. Others say that it’s repeated to teach that we must be just in the way we go about our pursuit of justice.

Here in Shoftim, we learn about four circumstances calling for justice.

In the first issue of justice, God tells the Children of Israel that when they arrive in the Promised Land, if they really want, they can be like other nations around them and appoint a king. Criteria for qualified royalty are pretty strict. The king must be from his own nation, must not keep an excess of horses, wives, silver or gold. In addition, the king must write his own Torah scroll and read it regularly, to remind himself to follow its laws, and to rule justly, treating all people with equity, no matter how rich or poor they are.

For the second example of justice, God tells the Children of Israel to create ‘cities of refuge’ in the Promised Land. If a person accidentally kills someone, he or she can flee to these cities and be safe from relatives of the dead who might seek revenge. But if someone commits murder and tries to escape into a ‘city of refuge’, the elders of that city are to send him or her directly into the hands of the vengeance-seeking family.

Carrying on with the theme of crime, accidental or otherwise, the third case of justice covers witnesses and testimony. In order for testimony to be valid, not one but two witnesses must give the exact same testimony. If it is discovered that two witnesses got together to make up false testimony, the Torah says to rid the city of that evil – in this case, to expel the false witnesses from that city. In another famous line in the Torah, the Israelites are told not to have compassion for them – “a life for a life, an eye for an eye,” and so on. This is to scare others who might have been considering providing false testimony of their own.

The fourth consideration of justice is about rules of warfare. God tries to comfort the Israelites, telling them not be fearful or faint-hearted when they go out to war even if outnumbered by their enemies. Easier said than done! Officers were commanded to protect the lives of soldiers who had a lot to lose, or a lot of living left to do. By telling their armies, the following – “Whoever has built a new house but hasn’t lived in it yet, go home.” Whoever has planted a vineyard and hasn’t picked the fruit yet, go home. And whoever is engaged to a woman but hasn’t married her yet, you go home, too.”

For thousands of years, the command ‘Justice, justice, shall you pursue’ has defined who the Jewish people are and what they’re about. Especially today, in the face of the critical need to ensure justice on issues like environmental devastation, economic injustice and genocidal activity around the globe, this call warns us. We dare not wait for opportunities to do justice but rather must act assertively to address the great moral issues of our time. Tsedek, Tsedek Tirdof, each of us must pursue justice.