Parashat Shoftim - Insights and Questions
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Parashat Shoftim is one of those parashot that at first glance look like a legal code for a state, but reading it in sequence reveals something fascinating: the Torah builds here a complete system for dealing with power. The power of a judge, the power of a king, the power of a prophet, the power of an army, and even the power a person has to convince himself that he is right.
The children of Israel stand a moment before entering the Land. In the desert they lived around Moshe. But what will happen when there are cities, borders, property, wars, a king, courts and politics? Deuteronomy 16:18 - 21:9.
Parashat Shoftim answers: to build a free people, defeating enemies is not enough. One must know how not to become slaves of our own power.
That is why the parasha opens by establishing a system of justice and demands: “Tzedek tzedek tirdof” (justice, justice shall you pursue, Deuteronomy 16:20).
Further on, the parasha reaches the king. The surprising thing is that right after the Torah regulates the very appointment of a king, it hurries to set limits on his power: he must not multiply horses, wives, silver and gold. The king is also required to engage with the Torah, and one of the explicit goals is: “Levilti rum levavo me’echav” (that his heart not be lifted above his brothers, Deuteronomy 17:20).
That is: precisely when a person rises above everyone through his role, the Torah fears his heart will begin to feel that he truly is above everyone.
The parasha continues with the prohibition of turning to sorcery, divination and consulting the dead, and sets against them one short, powerful sentence: “Tamim tihyeh im Adonai Elohecha” (be wholehearted with Adonai your God, Deuteronomy 18:13).
Then come the laws of true and false prophets, the cities of refuge, testimony and judgment, the laws of war and the limits on the conduct of the army. Even in wartime, when instinct says all the rules change, the parasha keeps setting boundaries.
The Torah fears weakness less than it fears power without limits
This is a reading that rises from the sequence of the parasha, not a quotation from a commentator: nearly every center of power immediately receives a system of brakes.
There is a judge? He may not bend judgment or take a bribe.
There is a king? His wealth and his might are limited.
There is a prophet? His words are tested for truth.
There are witnesses? One witness is not enough for the matters described in the parasha.
There is an army? It too does not act without limits.
The parasha can be read as a very bold claim: a good society is not measured only by who holds power, but by the question of who limits them while they hold it.
The danger of bribery is far greater than an envelope of cash
Scripture says of the bribe: “ki hashochad ye’aver einei chachamim visalef divrei tzadikim” (for the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous, Deuteronomy 16:19).
Note the words: not fools and not villains. The wise and the righteous.
From here an idea can be offered: the person most vulnerable to deception is not always the one who knows nothing. Sometimes it is precisely the clever person, capable of building a brilliant explanation for why what is convenient for him is also the right thing.
In other words, intelligence is no vaccine against bias. Sometimes it only supplies the bias with more sophisticated arguments.
The most fascinating sentence about leadership may hide in the king’s heart
The Torah is not satisfied with the king making correct decisions. It is interested in what happens inside his heart: “Levilti rum levavo me’echav” (that his heart not be lifted above his brothers, Deuteronomy 17:20).
A possible idea: the true test of a leader is not only how he behaves when he needs the crowd, but how he sees the people around him after he has already received status, money and honor.
The key word here is “me’echav” - above his brothers. He is a king, but they are still his brothers.
It is an almost paradoxical view of leadership: you must stand at the head of the people without beginning to think you are a different kind of human being from the people.
”Be wholehearted” precisely in a world where we want to know everything
The parasha describes people trying to break into the future through sorcerers, diviners and consulting the dead, and sets against them the call “Tamim tihyeh” (be wholehearted, Deuteronomy 18:13).
This can be read as an existential idea: one of the hardest things for a person to bear is uncertainty.
What will happen with the business? With the children? With health? With the country? Will my decision succeed?
We want a glimpse of the future because knowing gives a feeling of control.
And the parasha, in a conceptual reading, offers another possibility: you do not always need to know what will be in order to know how it is right to live now.
And there is one idea here that ties almost the whole parasha together
This is a possible derashah of mine on the structure of the parasha, not a quotation from the Sages:
Parashat Shoftim opens with judges and officers at the city gates, but perhaps it can also be read as a personal question:
Who sits at your gates?
Who decides which idea enters your head?
Who judges what you see?
Who stops you when anger takes over?
Who examines you when you are convinced you are right?
We have a little king inside who wants honor, an inner judge who can be bribed, a fear that wants to know the future, and a power that wants to act without limits.
Perhaps that is why Parashat Shoftim is not only instructions for building a state.
It can also be read as a manual for building a person able to govern himself before he tries to govern reality.
And this, to me, is one of the fascinating things in the parasha: before the Torah teaches a people how to hold a land, it teaches it how to hold power without the power holding it.
The hidden hero of Parashat Shoftim is actually the heart
This is a derashah I propose from the structure of the verses, not a quotation from the Sages.
At first glance Parashat Shoftim deals with the institutions of a state: judges, a king, priests, prophets, witnesses and an army. But a closer look reveals that the Torah returns again and again to one organ: the heart.
About the king the Torah worries: “Velo yarbeh lo nashim velo yasur levavo” (he shall not multiply wives for himself, that his heart not turn away, Deuteronomy 17:17).
And later in the same passage, the goal of the Torah that accompanies the king is: “Levilti rum levavo me’echav” (that his heart not be lifted above his brothers, Deuteronomy 17:20).
That is, two opposite dangers threaten the leader: that the heart turn away, and that the heart rise.
Then comes the question of prophecy. The Torah describes doubt not as a philosophical question in the air but as something happening inside a person: “Vekhi tomar bilvavekha eichah neda et hadavar asher lo dibro Adonai” (and if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word that Adonai has not spoken, Deuteronomy 18:21).
Then comes war: “al yerach levavchem” (let not your hearts be faint, Deuteronomy 20:3).
But here comes the verse that, to my mind, blows the whole picture open: “mi ha’ish hayare verach halevav yelech veyashov leveito velo yimas et levav echav kilvavo” (who is the man who is fearful and soft of heart? Let him go and return to his house, and let him not melt the heart of his brothers like his own heart, Deuteronomy 20:8).
The Torah does not say only that fear harms the one who fears.
One heart can melt other hearts.
Parashat Shoftim looks like a parasha about who rules the state, but beneath the surface it asks an entirely different question:
Who rules the heart of the one who rules?
For if the king rules a whole people but does not rule his own heart, the state is in danger.
If a prophet speaks in the name of heaven but the listener’s heart longs to believe anything, the truth is in danger.
If one soldier lets fear take over his heart, the fear is no longer a private matter. It can pass from person to person.
And even at the start of the parasha, before all this talk of the heart, the Torah warns that a bribe can warp a person’s very faculty of sight: “ki hashochad ye’aver einei chachamim” (for the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, Deuteronomy 16:19).
And here something beautiful can be expounded:
Sometimes an outer collapse begins with an inner collapse.
First the eyes no longer see straight.
Then the heart turns away.
Then the heart rises above others.
Then fear enters the heart.
And in the end it melts the hearts of others too.
So perhaps Parashat Shoftim is not only “the constitution of the state of Israel”.
It is also the anatomy of the soul that holds power.
And this, to me, is the striking message: in this homiletic reading, the problem is not the existence of power itself, but the danger that power will reach the hands before the person has learned to govern his own heart.
Questions on Parashat Shoftim
- Why does Parashat Shoftim open specifically at the city gates - and what is the hidden “gate” inside every person, where their most important decisions are made?
- Why does the Torah fear that a bribe can sway even a wise and righteous person - and is it precisely intelligent people who can sometimes justify their mistakes most convincingly?
- Why is the word “justice” doubled in the command to pursue justice - could it be that a just goal can be pursued in an unjust way?
- Why does the Torah move directly from the laws of judges and justice to idolatry beside the altar - what hidden connection is there between distorting justice and distorting the service of God?
- Why does the Torah demand thorough investigation precisely where the deed seems severe and obvious - and what does that teach about the danger of quick conviction driven by moral shock?
- Why is one person never enough to establish a decisive legal fact alone - and what does the parasha teach through this about the limits of human perception?
- Which is more dangerous in the Torah’s eyes: a king too weak or a king too strong - and what can be learned from the fact that the Torah surrounds the king precisely with prohibitions and limits?
- Why are the three things the Torah limits for the king horses, wives and silver - and do they represent three different kinds of power that can take over a person?
- Why does the Torah care not only about what the king does but also that his heart not be lifted above his brothers - could the great disaster of a leader begin long before a corrupt act, at the moment he stops seeing others as brothers?
- Why must the very person who sits on the throne keep returning to the Torah again and again - is it that the more power a person holds, the more he needs something reminding him that he is not the ultimate source of authority?
- Why does the tribe of Levi, devoted to the sacred, receive no inheritance like the other tribes - and what does the parasha say through this about the dangerous bond between spiritual authority and economic, territorial power?
- Why does the Torah set the prophet against the sorcerer and the diviner - all of them, seemingly, speak of things ordinary people cannot know? What is the deep difference between them?
- Is the desire to know the future itself a kind of fear - and is the call to be wholehearted with God in fact a demand to live without full control over what happens tomorrow?
- Why does the Torah itself raise the question of how we will know whether a prophet is lying - is the Torah teaching us that not everyone who speaks in the name of faith deserves automatic trust?
- Which is more dangerous: a false prophet who knows he is lying, or an audience that wants so much to believe him that it stops checking?
- Why does the Torah require preparing roads to the cities of refuge in advance - and what can be learned from a society that does not settle for mercy, but builds in advance a system that lets mercy work?
- What does the distinction between accidental and intentional killing teach about the relation between outcome and intention - are two people who caused exactly the same disaster truly the same person morally?
- Why does the prohibition of moving a boundary appear inside a parasha full of judges, witnesses, killers and wars - is the Torah hinting that even a quiet theft of a few centimeters is the beginning of social disintegration?
- Why are scheming witnesses punished according to what they plotted to do to another - and what does this teach about the moment when thought, speech and responsibility become something almost tangible?
- How can it be that just before war the Torah releases those who built a house, planted a vineyard or betrothed a woman - is the Torah saying there are things in life that matter even to an army?
- Why does the Torah fear that one frightened soldier will melt the hearts of others - and what does this teach about the fact that feelings are never truly private but can spread through a group like fire?
- Why, even during siege and war, does the Torah stop a person before destroying fruit trees - and what does this say about the danger that the war against the enemy will turn the fighter himself into a different person?
- Is there a hidden link between the king whose heart must not rise and the soldier whose heart must not soften - and why does “the heart” appear again and again wherever a person holds power or faces danger?
- If we join the judge, the king, the priest, the prophet, the witness and the soldier - does Parashat Shoftim in fact present six different kinds of power, and then teach how each of them can go wrong?
- And the greatest question of all: is Parashat Shoftim really about running a state - or does it use the state as a giant parable for a far more personal question: who are the judge, the king, the prophet and the officer at work inside my own soul?
Daily Aliyot
Parashat Shoftim - First Aliyah
The first aliyah of Shoftim sets up a justice system in every gate: appointing judges and officers, the prohibitions on the judge, the pursuit of justice, and going up to the place God will choose when a case is too hard for the local court.
Parashat Shoftim - Second Aliyah
The second aliyah of Shoftim defines a monarchy under limits: who is fit to reign, three brakes on power over horses, wives and wealth, and a Torah scroll the king writes and reads all the days of his life.
Parashat Shoftim - Third Aliyah
The third aliyah of Shoftim sets out an exceptional model: the tribe of Levi with no inheritance, a livelihood drawn from the sacred, the priestly gifts, and being chosen to stand and serve all the days.
Parashat Shoftim - Fourth Aliyah
The fourth aliyah of Shoftim sets the Levite who comes to serve with all the desire of his soul and receives an equal portion against the prohibitions of sorcery and divination, and closes with being wholehearted with God.
Parashat Shoftim - Fifth Aliyah
The fifth aliyah of Shoftim shuts the door on soothsayers and opens it to true prophecy, and sets up the cities of refuge as the infrastructure that keeps innocent blood from being shed.
Parashat Shoftim - Sixth Aliyah
The sixth aliyah of Shoftim moves from the boundary stone to the boundaries of justice, rules that one witness decides nothing and that a false witness is punished as he schemed, and then goes out to war and deals first with the heart.
Parashat Shoftim - Seventh Aliyah
The seventh aliyah of Shoftim opens every war with a call for peace, forbids destroying a fruit tree even under siege, and closes with the broken-necked calf over a corpse whose killer no one knows.