Chassidic Insights for Parshah Shoftim

Chapter 16

18 You must appoint judges and sheriffs for yourself in all your cities: The word used for “cities” here literally means “gates.” Allegorically, then, this verse can be interpreted to refer to the “gates” of the body—the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, through which external stimuli enter our consciousness. We are thus bidden to station “judges and sheriffs” to guard these gates so that we not be invaded by pernicious entities that could be detrimental to our spiritual health and integrity.1

As has been seen,2 the judges were not only responsible for rendering judgment but for enforcing proper behavior, as well. Analogously, our spiritual “judges” comprise both our study of the Torah—which teaches us which influences are beneficial (and therefore permitted) and which are detrimental (and therefore forbidden)—and our behavior in accordance with the Torah’s teachings. Our spiritual “sheriffs” are required only when our evil inclinations interfere with the orderly functioning of our spiritual judiciary, in which case we have to mobilize ourselves to oppose their evil machinations. We do this by carefully considering how harmful it is to ignore the Torah’s injunctions and by deprecating and scorning the advocates of rebellion, both within us and without.

In this context, we can understand why Moses did not appoint sheriffs when the Jewish people were in the desert and why, by the same token, regarding the messianic future, God only promises to “restore your judges as in former times”3 but not the sheriffs. Both in the desert and in the messianic future, evil did not and will not hold sway over us, so there was and will be no need for extreme measures to ensure that we follow God’s will.4

19 Bribery blinds the eyes of the sage: What is insidious about bribery is that it does not make us consciously act immorally or irrationally; rather, it skews our sense of judgment, making us sincerely believe that our warped perception is indeed objective and just. The Torah therefore tells us that it “blinds the eyes of the sage,” implying that even after accepting the bribe, the individual remains a sage, fully capable of logical reasoning, but that he has become blind to objective truth; having become predisposed to the rightness of the briber, his logic proceeds from a predetermined base.5

Thus, it follows that besides common bribery—a monetary or other type of gift—there also exists a subtler form of bribery: the simple awareness of self. A judge, or for that matter, anyone seeking to ascertain the truth about anything, must approach his subject without any sense of selfhood, for even the slightest degree of self-awareness will cause his perception to be subjective, and therefore incorrect, even if only subtly so.6

Chapter 17

8 The Sanhedrin: The Sanhedrin, the high court of 71 judges, inherits its authority from Moses and the 70 elders whom God selected to assist him in his capacity as the supreme legal authority of the Jewish people.7 Its basic function is judicial: to render final decisions in all matters of law brought before it by lower courts or designated specifically for its judgment. In addition, it is responsible for ensuring that the populace know the law and obey it—assisted, when necessary, by law-enforcement officers (“sheriffs”). In these respects, it fills the same function in the Torah’s legal system for Jews that non-Jewish courts fill within the legal system incorporated within the Torah’s Noahide code for non-Jews.8

In addition, however, the Sanhedrin is empowered—within the Torah’s guidelines—to create new laws. In this capacity, the Sanhedrin is the seedbed of the Oral Torah, expanding it and applying it to new cases in accordance with the growth and development of civilization. As such, the Sanhedrin expresses our most sublime spiritual potential: to identify so completely with God that we assume His role as the source of the Torah. It is no wonder, then, that besides possessing judicial expertise, members of the Sanhedrin are required to evince exemplary moral character and humility. Only those who have emptied themselves of ego and self-interest can serve as the channels through which Divine wisdom flows into the world.

As we have seen,9 the Torah’s directive to appoint judges and sheriffs throughout the land can be allegorically interpreted to mean that each of us should assume personal responsibility for learning the Torah and implementing its directives. In this vein, the two roles of the Sanhedrin just described—executive and creative—are mirrored in our personal relationship with God. The “judges”—our responsibility to learn and teach the Torah—correspond to the Sanhedrin’s creative role; the “sheriffs”—our responsibility to implement the Torah’s teachings—correspond to the Sanhedrin’s executive role.

Similarly, every commandment we perform comprises both these facets of relationship with God. There is, first of all, the common, underlying intention behind the performance of God’s commandments: to fulfill His will. In addition, there is the specific intention behind each individual commandment: its unique relevance and capacity to enhance our lives. The former intention is wholly operative, focused on accomplishing the Divine task at hand; the latter intention is more creative, focused on integrating the lesson to be learned from the commandment into our lives as a force for spiritual growth.

As we know, when we accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai, we did so by saying, “We will do and we will learn,”10 prefacing “we will do”—performing God’s will—to “we will hear”—studying and understanding the Torah This nuance perfectly expressed our unconditional commitment to our relationship with God. Accordingly, the “judges” are secondary to the “sheriffs”; the creative side is merely the prerequisite to the executive side.

This, however, is only half the story. Prefacing “we will do” to “we will learn” equally implies that “we will do” is prefatory to “we will learn”; in other words, even after we have executed God’s will, there is still intrinsic value to understanding it and internalizing it. This is because our Divine imperative to make the world into God’s home applies not only to our faculty of action but to our intellect and emotions, as well. They, too, must be refined and infused with Divine consciousness.11

11 Even if they have rendered a manifestly incorrect judgment: How can the Torah, which is the ultimate and absolute expression of truth, insist that we follow its sages even when they have manifestly erred? The answer to this question lies in the Torah’s attitude toward the relationship between Divine truth and what we perceive as objective reality. Although the Torah accords great respect to pragmatism, making ample use of empirical knowledge, it at the same time recognizes the superiority of Divine truth over material phenomena and the ability of the former to determine the latter—what we might refer to as positive idealism. Thus, the Talmud asserts15 that a Divinely sanctioned court of Jewish law has the ability, speaking with the voice of the Torah, to alter reality.

Therefore, when the Sanhedrin or any other duly authorized court of Jewish law “errs,” its decision alters the reality in question, rendering its decision ipso facto correct!16

15 You may indeed appoint a king over you: Reading these verses, the impression we form is that, subject to the provisions listed here, the Torah has no opposition to the institution of monarchy. And indeed, the prophetic vision of the Messiah depicts him primarily as a king.

Yet, we see that when the time came and the people did want to appoint a king over themselves, the leading spiritual authority of that time, the prophet Samuel, vehemently opposed the plan,17 and God Himself said that by appointing a king, “they are forsaking Me.”18

In order to understand this seeming contradiction, we can note that, in general, there are two positive motivations for instituting a monarchy. The first is based on society’s recognition that it must follow the law in order to function properly, but that it is incapable of doing so without some palpable form of higher authority that can coerce it into compliance. In this context, monarchy is not so different from any other form of government entrusted by the people to enforce the nation’s laws. In the context of Judaism, the people are ideally meant to follow both the letter and spirit of the Torah’s laws out of self-motivation. However, when the “fear of God”—i.e., the willingness to let God’s will override our personal desires—is lacking, and even the sheriffs of the judiciary are not enough to deter misbehavior, it becomes necessary to invoke a more intimidating deterrent—in this case, a king.

The second positive motivation is based on the Torah’s ideal of the king as the cream of the people, the paragon of Jewish humility and godliness. Inasmuch as not everyone can attain the highest levels of spiritual refinement—nor is even necessarily free to pursue such attainments—it is appropriate to appoint someone who has reached these levels to inspire the rest of the people to evince the spirituality that they do not yet possess but that he embodies, thus enabling them to vicariously experience his self-effacement before God. Needless to say, this second level of monarchy is relevant even when the people possess the basic “fear of God” that renders the first motivation for appointing a king irrelevant.

It was because the people in Samuel’s time requested a king solely for the first reason that he was so opposed to the notion. Samuel would have preferred that the people instead turn their attention inward, redoubling their efforts at refining themselves sufficiently that they would not need a king for the first, more prosaic reason. Similarly, God knew that their reason for seeking a king was out of spiritual laziness, and therefore described it as “forsaking Me.”

On the other hand, since in the final analysis it is better that the people behave properly regardless of their motivation, God instructed Samuel to grant their request and appoint a king. The hope was that after the king would fulfill his first function, inculcating the people with the proper “fear of God,” he would then fulfill his second function, bringing them to true humility and selflessness before God.

Although the Jewish people have not had a formal king since the destruction of the first Temple and will not have another until the advent of the Messiah, we are still enjoined to appoint a higher authority over ourselves, both individually and, wherever relevant, collectively. In the absence of the formal monarchy, this role is filled by the rabbinic establishment.19 The sages therefore say—to each one of us: “Provide yourself with a teacher [of Torah],”20 with whom we should consult on all matters of spiritual life and before whose review and scrutiny we should subject our progress on the spiritual path. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that we can rely on our own “judges and sheriffs” or that higher authority is only relevant once we have attained our optimal level of the “fear of God.” Even while we are struggling to attain this lesser goal, the commandment to appoint a “king” is relevant.

Furthermore, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that there is no suitable candidate to serve as our “king” since no one is perfect and therefore capable of understanding us objectively. The Torah assures us that if we search properly and diligently, we will indeed find the counselor suited to our spiritual needs.21

Chapter 18

19 I will exact punishment from him by putting him to death Myself: In most other cases, the punishment that the Torah prescribes for infringing a commandment is commensurate with the gravity of the commandment. Here, however, no matter what the prophet tells us to do or not to do, disobeying is a capital offence, because the instructions communicated through a prophet are directly and personally addressed by God to the recipients. In contrast, the Torah’s other commandments, having been formalized into a corpus of law, are one step removed from us, the addressees, and therefore violating them is not so brazen an affront to God’s authority as is ignoring a prophet’s message.44

Chapter 19

8 When, in the future, God, your God, expands your boundary as He swore to your forefathers: The Torah has alluded to the messianic Redemption before45 and will again later,46 but here it makes the Redemption part and parcel of a commandment. In so doing, it precludes two mistaken notions that a person could entertain about its promises of a future Redemption:

1. The Torah’s promises of redemption can be annulled for some reason (for example, they could be forfeited by the nation’s misbehavior).

2. The Redemption will be a solely spiritual occurrence, and the prophecies referring to it may be interpreted solely metaphorically.

It is true that God’s promises can be annulled; this is why Jacob was afraid that he no longer deserved God’s promised protection when he was about to confront Esau.47 But the Torah’s commandments cannot be abrogated, so a promise that is part of a commandment cannot be annulled.

Similarly, although there will indeed be a spiritual dimension to the Redemption—which will in fact be its principal significance—the Redemption will also be manifest physically, just as all the Torah’s commandments must be fulfilled physically, notwithstanding their great spiritual relevance.48

When, in the future, God, your God, expands your boundary as He swore to your forefathers: It is no accident that the future Redemption is alluded to in the context of the cities of refuge. The cities of refuge protect the inadvertent murderer from the blood avenger and the murderer’s exile to the city of refuge atones for his inadvertent sin.49 Allegorically, the blood avenger is our evil inclination, who attempts to trick us into sinning and thereby suffering some form of death—from a loss of vitality in our spiritual endeavors up to and including incurring the death penalty itself. The messianic Redemption will be our ultimate refuge from this pursuer, inasmuch as the evil inclination will then be nullified.50 Similarly, the messianic Redemption and the attendant restitution of the Temple service will afford all who need it the opportunity to complete their atonement.51

15 The matter must be confirmed by the testimony of two witnesses: There are two types of witnesses in Jewish law: attesting witnesses, who must be present when a particular legal procedure occurs in order for it to be considered legally valid; and testifying witnesses, whose purpose is to testify in court that they have witnessed some act, thereby substantiating its factualness. An example of the first type of witnesses is those that must be present at a wedding ceremony or at divorce proceedings in order for these to be valid; an example of the second type of witnesses is the case described in this verse: witnesses to a crime.

Thus, the implication of the words “the matter must be confirmed” in this verse changes subtly when applied to either of these two types of witnesses. In the first case, they mean “the procedure will be considered legally valid”; in the second case, they mean “the act will be considered to have happened.”

The spiritual analogues of these two types of witnesses are the two types of witnesses that attest to and testify to the absolute transcendence of God’s essence. To explain: no testimony per se is required in order to prove the existence of the immanent Divine power that sustains creation; it is enough for us to contemplate the order and operation of nature to deduce that such a power exists. In Job’s words, “By [contemplating] my flesh, I behold God”55—just as the soul fills and animates the body, so must there be a Divine energy that fills and animates the universe.56 No testimony is even required to substantiate the existence of the transcendent Divine power that brings reality into being; just as the mind accepts the reality of immanent Divinity, it understands that that Divinity cannot be the fullest expression of God’s potential. Intellect itself concludes that there must be an aspect of Divinity that transcends our intellect, that lies beyond our ken.

What does require testimony is the notion that God’s essence is totally abstract, that it is beyond not only our ability to understand but our ability to conceive. The veracity of this notion must be established by “witnesses” because there is no logical imperative that this should be the case.

There are two types of witnesses to this notion:57 attesting and testifying. The Torah refers to “heaven and earth” as God’s testifying witnesses.58 Relative to individual human beings, heaven and earth evince infinity. The heavenly bodies exist “eternally,” that is, not exhibiting any discernible change throughout the generations, and although the individual creatures of earth do not live forever, their species persist “forever,” that is, again, without any discernible change throughout the generations. Thus, heaven and earth testify that there is a (relatively) infinite power embedded within creation, and since all creation is created by God, this relative infinity must derive from a true infinity within God, indicating that there is an aspect of God that is infinitely beyond our ability to conceive.

The Torah’s attesting witnesses to the inconceivable nature of God’s essence are the Jewish people. Whereas heaven and earth only testify to God’s infinity, the Jewish people attest this infinity, i.e., they actualize it, so to speak. By studying the Torah and performing God’s commandments, the Jewish people introduce the ineffability of God’s essence into the physical world, paradoxically accomplishing the categorically impossible feat of expressing what is by nature inexpressible in this finite world.

Herein lies the subtle difference between the testimony offered by heaven and earth and the attestation offered by the Jewish people. While the testimony of heaven and earth does indeed allow the world to appreciate God’s infinity, it does not necessarily imply that the universe cannot exist apart from God. In contrast, the attestation of God’s infinity expressed by our study of the Torah and fulfillment of the commandments implies explicitly that God’s existence is the only true existence, that all other forms of existence are contingent upon His and that “nothing exists besides Him.”59

These two types of witness are reflected in the different ways we can approach our Divine mission in life. Most aspects of this mission make perfect sense, and therefore, a cursory reflection on the nature of human life, at most, is required to motivate us to dedicate ourselves to this mission enthusiastically. Furthermore, even the occasional need for self-sacrifice can for the most part be well-understood logically, since logic can admit that it is sometimes necessary to override logic, resorting to supra-logical means to accomplish logical ends. But the highest form of dedication to our Divine mission is unlimited, unconditional self-sacrifice that ignores logic altogether. Such self-sacrifice can only stem from the sense of self-identification with God that is wholly beyond the ability of the intellect to conceive.60

Chapter 20

19 Is the tree of the field a man: The wording of this phrase in Hebrew allows it to be understood not only as a question but also as a statement (“Man is a tree of the field”), and indeed, the Torah has already metaphorically referred to a righteous individual as a tree.61

The principal way in which a tree serves as a metaphor for a human being is that just as a tree grows and produces fruit, so are we expected to mature and be productive in life.

Of all the constituents of the human being that exhibit growth and maturation, the one capable of doing so most strikingly is our emotions: our likes and dislikes, our aspirations and dreams. When governed and trained by our intellect—the characteristic that elevates us above the other three natural kingdoms (inanimate, vegetable, and animal)—our emotions can mature so dramatically that they bear almost no resemblance to the infantile or base emotions we felt as children.

Furthermore, what distinguishes the plant kingdom from other forms of life is that plants must always be connected to their source of vitality—the earth—in order to remain alive. True, fish must remain in the water, but they can migrate from one body of water to another. In contrast, it is much harder to successfully transplant a plant. This is particularly evident with respect to trees, which remain alive and develop from year to year. Their ability to not only weather the changing seasons but thrive despite them bespeaks their strong connection to their life-source. Similarly, the emotions are more deeply rooted in the soul than is the intellect. They are therefore at the same time more fixed and more compelling than the intellect, which can flit from conclusion to new conclusion like an animal can move from place to place.

Therefore, it is specifically our emotions that betray how developed a human being we have become. Anyone can be gifted with superior intelligence or talent, but truly refined emotions are achieved only through dedicated efforts at self-betterment.

The sign that a person has attained some level of emotional maturity is that he or she has consciously decided to shed childlike self-absorption and become of some use to the world. The allegory for this maturity is the fruit-bearing tree. Unlike a barren tree, which merely impresses us with its stately presence or offers us shade (for which it sacrifices nothing), the fruit-bearing tree provides us with nourishment and delight at its own expense.

In this context, the Torah’s prohibition against cutting down fruit-bearing trees, together with the permission it grants us to fell barren trees, may be interpreted to mean that we should take care to seek instruction and inspiration from people who are not only intelligent and talented but who have made it a point to utilize their gifts for the greater good.

The emotions’ deeper rootedness in the soul as compared to the intellect’s is also reflected in the collective psychology of the Jewish people. We owe our commonality to our shared ancestry, being the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As we have seen, the three patriarchs expressed the three primary Divine emotions: loving-kindness, restraint, and mercy. Although we do possess a unique “Jewish intellect,” it is chiefly the emotions that we have inherited from the patriarchs that express our essential connection to them.

Thus, an immediate lesson from the tree-metaphor is that although some of us can live our lives as “fish,” totally immersed in our spiritual life-source, i.e., learning Torah and praying, most of us live our lives as “trees,” exposed to the elements and having to weather the varying spiritual climates that characterize the material world. As such, it is imperative that we have strong roots, i.e., that we ensure that we remain firmly rooted in the world of Torah and true to the heritage of our forefathers. By the same token, those of us whose lives are spent chiefly studying the Torah must realize that they must be not only “fish”—darting to and fro in the intellectual sea of abstract thought—but also “trees,” steadily growing as they refine their emotions, so that when they venture forth from the incubator of Torah, they will remain properly spiritual oriented.

(Once we define the tree-metaphor as referring specifically to the emotions, we can again interpret this verse in its plain sense, i.e., as a question: Of the four synonyms for “man” used by the Torah, the one used in this verse [adam] specifically emphasizes the superiority of the human being’s intelligence relative to that of other forms of life. In this context, this verse can be understood to mean, “Is adam a tree of the field?”—i.e., “Is a person’s superior intellect measured by the maturity of his or her emotions?” To which the answer is a resounding “yes!” because, as we have explained, the reason God granted us superior intellect is not to engage in intellectual exploits for their own sake but for the sake of positively influencing and refining our emotions.)62

Is the tree of the field a man: Carrying the analogy a step further, we note that fruit does not grow on the trunk of the tree itself, or even directly on its branches; it develops only out of flowers that bud off the tree’s branches. Nonetheless, fruit is nourished by the tree proper, and it is for that reason that the permissibility of cutting down the entire tree depends on the presence or absence of fruit. Allegorically, the tree proper represents abstract intellect, which, because it is not concerned with the implications of its conclusions, does not directly affect the emotions; whereas the parts of the tree from which the fruit directly grows represent concrete intellect, which directly affects the growth and maturation of the emotions.

The concrete intellect, although directly responsible for the development of the emotions, is insufficient in two regards: firstly, being so closely allied to the emotions, they can easily resist it. For example, when we are in an indifferent mood, our emotions can remain unimpressed by the efforts of the concrete intellect to steer them in the proper direction. Similarly, the concrete intellect can sometimes be influenced by the emotions instead of influencing them: our predisposition toward a particular emotion can prevail upon the intellect to rationalize that emotion.

Secondly, even when the concrete intellect does succeed in refining the emotions, it cannot transform them totally, since it remains tied to them. It has applied itself too intimately to the specifics of the particular emotion on which it is focused to enable it to transform that emotion altogether.

The abstract intellect, in contrast, is not vulnerable to these pitfalls. Being removed from the emotions, it can be neither easily resisted by them nor influenced by them. By the same token, being removed from any particular emotion, it can easily transform it, transplanting it, so to speak, into a totally different context.

This dichotomy also characterizes the inner and outer dimensions of the Torah. The exoteric dimension of the Torah, which is garbed in the issues and phenomena of the material world, can sometimes fail to refine us properly, and even when it does, it does not transform us into the Godly human beings we are meant to become. The esoteric dimension of the Torah, in contrast, abstracted from the material context of this world, cannot but refine us; furthermore, it is uniquely suited to transforming us by revealing our intrinsic Divine potential to manifest our innate holiness.63

Chapter 21

2 The Sanhedrin must go out: It can be readily understood why the court of the nearest city must be involved in the ritual of atonement for an unwitnessed murder: as part of the ritual itself, the judges must absolve themselves of any guilt of having not given him proper escort. Why, however, must the Sanhedrin, whose seat is in Jerusalem, trouble itself to travel to some far-flung outpost to participate in the ritual? What fault is it of theirs that this crime occurred?

The Midrash64 answers that, indeed, the Sanhedrin is responsible for the moral education of the nation; thus, they are quite responsible for such a crime, even if indirectly. This is a clear lesson for any of us who are in a position of influence: we must not be content to merely dispatch the tasks associated with our position; we must utilize our influence for the moral edification of the widest public possible.

Allegorically, the “slain” person out in the “field” is anyone who is a victim of either his own or society’s secular-materialist outlook, which cuts him off from the Torah, our source of true life and vitality. If anyone might question of what concern such an individual should be to those fortunate enough not to have fallen victim to such an outlook, the Torah here tells us otherwise. The Sanhedrin itself must assume responsibility for such a person, and the local authorities must provide him or her with a proper Torah education (“food,” as the Torah is our spiritual sustenance) and inculcate in him or her the need to perform God’s commandments (“clothing,” as the commandments protect us from spiritual coldness and shield us from negative influences). Following their example, we too must do our utmost to see to the physical and spiritual needs of our brothers and sisters in distress.65