Ra'anana Community Kollel - Parshat Shoftim 5765

Taking It Personally

Rabbi Binyomin Lipson

“Place judges and policemen
in all of your gates . . . (Devarim 14:1)

Just as we are instructed in the Torah to ensure that every Jewish city possesses competent, law abiding courts whose judges will serve to settle matters of dispute, we are likewise commanded to appoint law-enforcement officers who will help to carry out the decisions which they render. Who can imagine a place where there are neither courts to determine the laws nor officers to enforce them? A place where every person can do as he pleases without the slightest regard for others or responsibility for his actions will, in a very short time, undoubtedly bring about the reign of total chaos, and anarchy will prevail as the sole form of government. Certainly, no right-thinking person would suggest that a society of any kind can function without both judges and policemen, each one performing his duty in the necessary way.

Interestingly, this week’s parsha of Shoftim is always the first parsha of the month of Elul, when we begin to intensify our spiritual pursuits in anticipation of the coming Days of Awe. If this fact repeats itself year after year, there must be some significance to it. What is the message that parshat Shoftim proclaims which is so relevant to the path towards the Days of Judgment on which we are currently embarking?

Unquestionably, one answer to this question can be found in the very first words of the parsha, “Place judges and policemen in all of your gates which Hashem your G-d has given you and they will judge the nation righteously.” On a deeper level, the gates which to Torah refers to are not simply to be understood in the literal sense. Rather, as the mystics tell us, every human being also contains many different “gates”. Our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth comprise, perhaps to an even greater extent, “the gates which Hashem your G-d has given you.” Thus the Torah is not just placing a demand on the general order of society to ensure that the aforementioned positions are adequately filled, but rather, it is placing a demand on each and every one of us on personal level as well, as the Days of Awe are quickly approaching, to fortify our personal judges and policemen. The judges represent our ability to discern what goes in and comes out of our gates; what we see and what we choose to listen to, what we say and what we eat, while the policemen carry out the perception of the truth which we have come to understand. The judges may be very accurate in their verdicts, but if there are no police to carry out their findings they remain essentially worthless. This is the message of parshat Shoftim, the very first Torah reading of the holy month of Elul. Let each of us contemplate this message and what it means to us on a personal level, and may Hashem assist each and every one of us this Elul to make the improvements in our behavior which we know are well within our grasp.