Parashat Shoftim - English

Devarim – Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9 

Rabbi Claudio Jodorkovsky

Asociación Israelita Montefiore 

Bogota, Colombia 

A few years ago, a member of my community approached me after the High Holidays, and told me a story.  

He had attended almost all the Holiday services, and his daughter had been with him more than once.  During the Yom Kippur break, the child, confused and a little sad, asked her father:  “Daddy, I heard you say that you had lied, cheated and stolen.  Is that true?” 

Several weeks later, the father shared the story with me, taking advantage of the opportunity to ask me why it is that many of the High Holiday prayers contain confession of sins done in a collective manner, where people end up publicly assuming transgressions which in truth they have never committed. 

Without a doubt, a legitimate question.  We try to be consistent, and feel strange when confessing sins over which we bear no responsibility.  I believe that our parashah, Shoftim, contains a very meaningful story that can help us find an answer. 

This week, the Torah refers to a strange ritual known, in rabbinical literature, as Egla Arupha (Devarim 21:1-19):  in the event of a tragedy, if a person is found dead in the midst of the fields, the elders and priests of the closest city are obliged to come forth and perform a ritual through which they will publicly disavow any responsibility for the tragedy.   Immediately after, they will wash their hands and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it” (21:7). 

At first glance we learn that the local authorities, although they declare themselves not guilty, assume through this ritual the social responsibility entailed by the murder of a member of their society.  Even if they weren’t the ones who shed that blood, they have to assume a responsibility anyway:  that of keeping watch over the fulfillment of the law, protecting their citizens, and educating them with a view to respect and care for all fellow beings. 

But the Torah goes farther on, and a detail hidden in the Hebrew writings allows us to understand that our tradition’s ideal of social responsibility is even more demanding.  When we read the words of the declaration that the elders had to pronounce, at the moment of finding the body, we notice that it can be read in two different ways.  The elders have to say:  “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it”.  However, taking into account that vowels do not appear on the original text of the Torah, it is also possible to read this text in singular:  “Our hand has not shed this blood”. 

Although this detail seems to be deceptively trivial, when we study it in depth we see it offers us an additional meaning, reasserting the responsibility shared among the members of a society.  The Torah is telling us that while the city closest to the murder stands at attention with “one hand”, stating their innocence, with the “other hand” it must try and find the culprit, do justice and thus ensure that a tragedy such as this will never happen again. 

Among our people, what happens to one happens to all.  The pain of my neighbors, their tragedies and also their transgressions, I must feel them as if they were my own.  Like a large mechanism, where if one gear fails, the entire system will be damaged.  Or like our body, when some part of it hurts and, as a result, we find it difficult to function at any level:  if our head hurts, even moving our feet to walk feels uncomfortable. 

If we return to our starting story, we see that we will suffer the same thing in a few weeks, in the Days of Awe.  My neighbor’s sin is not just a product of his mistake, but also of that which we surely did not do as a community in order to avoid or prevent it.  And once it occurred, we must be there to help him stand up, move forward, and never again fall down. 

We have already begun the month of Elul, which we devote to our Cheshvon Hanefesh, the spiritual balance prior to the festivities of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  The initials of “”Elul” form the verse of the Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs), which says:  Ani L'Dodi, v'Dodi Li, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine”.  Besides the personal introspection necessary for the High Holidays, our tradition reminds us of the importance of strengthening the love and affection towards our fellow men, assuming our responsibility over their victories and failures. 

Shabbat Shalom u’Meborah!