Shoftim 5776 - English

By Rabbi Guido Cohen

Asociación Israelita Montefiore Bogotá, Colombia.

This week’s Parashah begins by saying, “You shall set up judges and law enforcement officials for yourself in all the gates that the Lord, your God, is giving you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people [with] righteous judgment.”

In a literal dimension, the gates refer to the gates of the cities.  The verse is pretty clear.  It is asking us to place judges at the entrance of the cities.  In fact, in different biblical texts and even in archaeological findings from several cultures, we can see that this was the custom in ancient times.  Judges served the people at the entrance of the cities 

We now live in modern cities with different kinds of courts, so we are challenged to get from this verse some other meaning, not exactly literal.  For example, there are some explanations that say that “the gates” are your senses, meaning the mouth and the ears, to guard what each of us will say.  

As is customary among Hassidic sages, the Rabbis from this tradition extract from the verse some deeper, almost occult, teaching than what we know from regular rabbinic tradition.  

In this sense, Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polnoye, the most distinguished alum of the Baal Shem Tov, offers a very interesting interpretation.  The word “sheur” in Hebrew means measurement.  It shares a root with the word “shaar” which is gate.  “In all your gates” could be read as “in all your measurements.”  And what does he mean by measurements?  He means the standards we use to judge.  Jacob Joseph takes it further and teaches us that we must set judges on the ways we judge others, that is we must judge them in the same way we judge ourselves.  If one is quick to judge oneself, then the same should apply when judging others.  If one is severe when judging the other, one should judge oneself with severity too.  What cannot be done is setting measures that are unfair: judging oneself mercifully and the other with severity.  

It is notable that Jacob Joseph takes this verse and uses it to attack a very ugly flaw that we sometimes have: the double standard.  When looking at others, we are severe, and we don’t notice that sometimes that for which we judge the other is in us as well.  

This dimension of not being more severe to others than we are to ourselves is translated into a rabbinical principle that says, “heveh dan et kol haadam lekaf zechut,” judge all men with the same standard of merit.  

One of the Talmudic stories that teaches this (Shabbat 127b) happens precisely at the beginning of the Jewish year, on the eve of Yom Kippur.  The story talks of a man who could not afford to pay his servant what was due, and when his servant proposed different payment alternatives, the man refused to pay, for example, in kind.  Finally, the servant left with empty hands.  When he came back after the holidays, the master paid him what was owed and then some, and he asked him, “what did you think when I told you I could not pay you one way or the other?”  The servant answered that he guessed that for each no from his master, there was a reasonable motive.  He never doubted that his master was telling him the truth. The text ends by teaching us that whoever judges the other benevolently, is in turn judged benevolently. 

The most sacred days of the year are approaching.  The time when we beg to be judged in a benevolent and generous manner.  Actually, we are not asking for anything other than to be judged in a similar way to how we judge ourselves.  But sometimes, a little bit lighter than the way we judge our fellow men.  Taking a teaching from another Hassidic sage about this Parashah (Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev), the verse continues by saying, “and they shall judge the people [with] righteous judgment.”  Levi Yitzhak says “and they shall judge, above.”  Like we judge below, so shall we be judged in the celestial court.  The way we treat our fellow man when it is our turn to judge, is the way the Eternal will treat us in the days of judgment and repentance.  

May this Parashah inspire is to judge generously and benevolently, so we may aspire to a trial just as generous in the days to come.

Shabbat Shalom

Rab Guido Cohen