Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Measure for Measure

Soon to enter the Promised Land, the Israelites are commanded, in the very first wordsof our parashah, Shoftim: “Judges and officers you shall appoint in all your (city) gates”.

Understanding that justice and peace cannot be maintained without if we do not also monitor and regulate our behaviour from within, the Rabbinic tradition reads gates (שערך/she’arekha) as referring, as well, to one’s personal portals. What we say, how we see others and what we hear is critical to the society that we create and foster. As the root word sh’ar/שער can also mean estimation and evaluation, the Rabbis add that we must be self-monitoring in our opinion and perception of others which, in turn, effect civic interactions in the gates of our cities.

We become judicious officers of our own gates, regulating our behaviour and being accountable for our actions, if we see and trust that our city officials are doing the same themselves and for our shared community. It is significant, therefore, that our parashah closes with the following remarkable practice and ritual.

We are told that if a slain body is found in a field, the town/city located closest to the corpse of the murdered individual engages in a purifying ritual, with its elders as their representatives, publicly declaring: “Our hands have not shed this blood nor did our eyes see it done”.

The city, the Talmud explains, investigates itself. Did its citizens send a vulnerable person on his/her way without an escort thus being liable for the blood being spilt. Or, was the slayer a recognised criminal passing through or of the city who was not adequately monitored or detained. Perhaps, it was not ascertained by the city members that the slain individual had the necessary provisions for his journey and was murdered in seeking to steal food to satiate his hunger.

Our Jewish tradition teaches that there is less of a need in policing others if we police ourselves. The word sh’ar/שער also means measure. Our community is measured by how each of us takes measure of himself and his responsibilities even as we are measured by the community that we create.