Parsha Summary: Shoftim

A dear friend, teacher, mentor, and all around mensch turns 90 this week. You are a prophet in our time, my friend. This post is dedicated to you, with love, admiration, and respect. Here’s to you, JG. L’chaim! To life!

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In Parsha Shoftim, Moses instructs the Israelites on the principles of justice and leadership as they prepare to enter the Land. He emphasizes the importance of appointing judges (shoftim) and officers in every city to ensure fair and impartial justice, introducing a professional judiciary to replace the earlier elders model. Ironically, it’s Moses who institutes the system of elders by Jethro’s suggestion, told in Genesis, and now the authors of Deuteronomy have Moses institute the magistrates.

These judges are to avoid corruption and embody the principle of “justice, justice shall you pursue,” or tzedek tzedek tirdof, in transliterated Hebrew. This is one of the more widely known passages of Torah, and the repetition of justice (tzedek tzedek) emphasizes the principle. My favorite commentary on the repetition of ‘justice’ is to instruct both the pursuit of justice and, when pursuing justice, do so in just ways.

The centralization of power under Josiah changes the relationship to local courts. Local jurisdictions are granted tremendous authority, even permitting the trial and execution of capital crimes, but to constrain the local authority, strict guidelines are introduced for due process and the requirement for at least two witnesses when giving testimony in the case of capital crimes.

The parsha outlines the roles and responsibilities of kings, priests, and judges, and kings are instructed to follow specific guidelines, including not amassing excessive wealth or horses, and writing a copy of the “Torah” to keep with them. Here, Torah refers to that core material that we’ve discussed plenty on this blog, chapters 12-26 of Deuteronomy, the pre-exiic material patterned after other ancient Southwest Asian treaties between empire and vassal state.

The parsha warns against false prophets, as we’ve noticed before in Deuteronomy, along with warnings against the practice of idolatry, emphasizing the need to remain loyal to the God of Israel.

And yet, this parsha includes a positive endorsement of prophets who speak authentically on behalf of God (18.15). Although Deuteronomy adopts an attitude of suspicion involving prophecy earlier in the book, this parsha seems to restore the role of a true prophet. Perhaps this reflects later redaction to soften the criticism levied against prophecy earlier in the material, or this restoration of the prophet may reflect separate traditions that were ultimately weaved together. We’ll have more to say on prophecy in the commentary.

Shoftim introduces the concept of cities of refuge, where people who commit accidental manslaughter can seek asylum, underscoring the value of human life and the importance of distinguishing between intentional and unintentional acts. It may be worth noting that in this parsha, asylum seekers and sanctuary cities are affirmed.

The parsha concludes with laws concerning warfare, including the ethical treatment of enemies and the prohibition against destroying fruit trees during a siege, highlighting the importance of preserving resources and life even in times of conflict. That’s a positive gloss, though, as always, the author employs troubling language to call for the ethnic cleansing of populations involved in idol worship.

I celebrate the pursuit of justice, the institution of due process, strict rules for testimony, and allowances for the innocent seeking refuge. On the other hand, the tribal warfare is an ugly part of the text that we must simply live with. That this rhetoric is not dissimilar from other literature of the era and geography is of little comfort when our present era is rife with warfare and episodes of global ethnic cleansing. Sometimes the mirror of the text is show us what we need to resist.

Commentary: The Independence of the Prophet

Last night my dad returned our youngest, Gideon, home after soccer practice. I don’t drive because of epilepsy related to my brain cancer (the fancy name is TAE, or Tumor Associated Epilepsy), so we rely quite a lot on family and friends to fill the gaps in the transportation schedule.

“Working on Deuteronomy?” my dad asked, while I sat at our small kitchen table, Torah and commentaries open around me.

If you pay any amount of attention around here, you’ll know that my dad is a pastor who is also a friend, teacher, and mentor to me.

“I have no idea,” I threw up my hands, exasperated. I had finished reading the Torah portion, which is always my first step: First, read the text on the page before anything else, then go to the commentaries. When I read the commentaries first, I read the text to confirm my already present biases rather than read for discovery. Hell, who am I kidding, I bring plenty of bias as-is, no matter the order of operations! But I really do make the effort to read the text on its own terms first, in English, of course, so even this practice is attenuated, but my effort is to understand what speaks to me from the text before learning what spoke to people far more educated and experienced.

I explain to my dad that the commentary connects a statement in Deuteronomy about being blind to justice that we encounter in this week’s Parsha to a statement in Exodus about the goal of justice that it should be clear-eyed. A dig on the old judges, the OG shoftim, if you’ll allow me the courtesy of being a millennial and using our language, “OG.”

“Did the scribes only write for scribes?” I processed out loud to my dad. “They, the scribes, I mean, probably would see the Exodus connection when copying, and before this, even put it in by hand, but would the everyday Hebrew in the 7th century BCE hear the Deuteronomist and think, ‘Ooh, an admonishment of our earlier governing authorities’? Seems to me that lots of people in ancient Southwest Asia are engaged in subsistence living, without the education or leisure time to be opining on the text.”

“I mean, I have no idea,” I said again after a pregnant pause. “How much longer can I keep pedaling the same academic take about centralization?” I asked rhetorically.

That’s the thing about these commentaries, and I have several, each are written from a particular point of view. The Social Justice Torah Commentary is up to something different from the Jewish Study Bible commentary, from the Five Books of Miriam, feminist commentary, from the Bedside Torah Commentary, from the Bible with Sources Revealed source-critical commentary, and so on.

Pirkei Avot, the “Chapters of the Fathers,” a Rabbinic text of ethical sayings and maxims includes a rather popular statement, in Jewish study circles at any rate, a saying about Torah (paraphrased), “Turn it and turn it again, for all is within it.” It is the interpretive pluralism of the Rabbinic writings that serve as the foundation for modern Jewish diversity of thought and the origin for such quips as, “Two Jews, three opinions.” And so, I think the variety and perspectives of our commentaries only stands to strengthen our understanding.

But pluralism in our interpretive practices doesn’t solve the underlying issue for me involving many questions that we raise about the text: I simply do not know.

“This centralization thing has created a whole ball of wax,” I continue processing with my dad. “Before centralization, local groups had their own systems of justice, but if we’re consolidating power, what do we do with local jurisdictions?” This is a central problem presented in this week’s Torah portion. And see, the problem is not only how to administer justice locally, but indeed, on whose authority? From the Torah, with the Holy One’s authority, the Divine sovereign? On Josiah’s authority as the ruling monarch? On the authority of the local magistrates? That seems plausible as the judiciary is now professional and formalized.

Raising the question of authority got me to thinking about the authorization of the prophets. The text in Deuteronomy 18:15 states, “The LORD [Adonai] your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.” This passage does something important that I think we should pause to discuss. The prophet’s authority comes directly from God, ensuring, ostensibly, that their messages remain free of corruption by personal or political interests. After all, that was the worry with prophecy in earlier passages. These false prophets could turn us toward idol worship!

But it’s not only the clarity of message that these prophets have going for them. Unlike kings, who inherit their position, or priests, who belong to the tribe of Levi, prophets are raised up by God from among the people to serve as messengers for God. This divine appointment is significant because it ensures that the prophet’s guidance resists the influence of familial or tribal affiliations. The prophet’s role is to guide the people, call them to repentance, and provide divine insight, maintaining a direct line of communication between God and the Israelites.

Wrapping Things Up

Repentance, spiritual transformation (my gloss on divine insight), and commune with God are central themes for the Hebrew month of Elul, the month we are now in, by the Hebrew calendar. Elul is a time of preparation for the High Holidays coming with Rosh Hashana in less than a month.

Whether later redactors knew that these damn Kings would get us in trouble, or the scribes are projecting their own political misgivings, the prophet, as an independent agent of God, is unencumbered by the complexities of human politics and lineage. Indeed, it’s that independence that allows the prophet to critique the monarchs.

I met with a small group earlier this week to begin our Elul programming at the Secular Synagogue. One of the questions that we discussed together was, “What person do you want to be?” Elul is the time for Jewish people to take on this question. Committed to justice, protecting those seeking asylum, and developing trust and connection with God, maybe the answer to “Who do you want to be?” is to be more like the prophets.