Shoftim

I had always felt like a fraud in a church, quite torn, but didn’t know how to begin to live life as a Jew. So I slogged along, well into middle age, not knowing where to begin.

Laws protect our safety, ensure rights, resolve conflicts and bind us as a society. Without the underpinning of both righteousness and mercy, however, the resulting society we could create would be neither just nor holy.

In Hebrew, the word tzedek, which means “justice,” also means “righteousness.” Perhaps the dual use of the word “justice” means that we cannot pursue “justice” without also being “righteous.”

Just as I would be falling into a deep sleep, I’d waken to the sound of crashing.

While no one will argue that man’s psyche is a tabula rasa, the question is: to what extent do we control the choices that we make? Whom can I blame? Where does my choice begin?

We spend our youth building up cynicism, then we come to our twenties and thirties and are suddenly expected to make all those big life changes, like marriage and kids, that require faith in our fellow human beings, not to mention ourselves...

The tree’s greatest benefit is the fruit it produces; man’s greatest hallmark is the fruit of his intellect—the knowledge being absorbed by his emotions to create the proper feelings, and then actions.

There is something very grounding about trees. They are solid, stationary and easy to hug. And, with roots knotted firmly in the soil and a dense net of branches that dance at its head, a tree can help anchor a lost and disoriented person . . .

This weekly study packet is part of theJewishwoman.org “Be a Leader” initiative. Print it out and learn it with your study group.