Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Shoftim, in which we learn about some of the establishments of legal proceedings in Judaism. Shoftim means “judges” and much of the parasha is dedicated to explaining the strata and hierarchy of leadership in the Jewish community, and how we legally establish norms for approaching conflict in a more ethical manner. 

Parashat Shoftim is one of my favorite Torah portions, but also I find one of the hardest to write about for a public audience. When I read it, I almost always see only the ways our society and people, as a whole and also specifically as Jews, are failing to uphold the commandments here. We love to quote “Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue,” but that’s actually pretty vague. We could have different ideas of justice. The laws for a justice system demands equity and multiple witnesses and judges to ensure a fair outcome? Not that vague. A commandment for cities of refuge to ensure safety for all and no vigilante justice? Not that vague. A commandment that peaceful diplomatic overtures must be made before declaring war on a provoking or beiseging nation? Not vague. Rules to mitigate collateral damage in war? Not vague. 

Of course, there are also some things in this parasha I would also toss out as seemingly easily as others have tossed out these laws that I cherished as a core piece of Jewish values. I would love to ignore the calls to invade the Promised Land and force the current inhabitants into labor, the acceptance that militants will take slaves and “wives” as booty when conquering the Land, the commandment that idol worshippers be put to death (I particularly have a lot of feelings about the Asherah being named in this parasha, but we can talk about that another time). But as I’ve said before, ultimately, when cherry-picking which mitzvot to follow or deciding which Torah verses are outdated or in need of new interpretation, why wouldn’t we err on the side of humanity? Of life? Of inclusivity and peace and solidarity and mutual protection of other communities and the Earth? Why would we throw out the commandments that lead us to be nicer in favor of xenophobia and blood lust and a frankly unJewish view of land stewardship? Because they might keep us safer, at the expense of someone else? Because they protect us from feeling bad about how we have misstepped? 

About six weeks ago, I helped to plan and lead a prayer service with T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, in conjunction with protests againt Prime Minister Netanyahu led by UnXeptable and several families of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, to pray for a ceasefire, for peace, for a diplomatic solution that would bring the hostages home. For that I wrote a modern Tachanun, a prayer commonly said for daily davveners. Tachanun are prayers of penitence said following the Amidah on weekdays. Today, being Shabbat, would not be a Tachanun day even if we were a community that had Tachanun in our prayer books. But we have now entered the season of Selichot, of apologies and repentance. We have less than a month until the High Holy Days, a time for deep personal and communal reflection and atonement, and it feels still appropriate to share these words now. 

“There is a tradition among some Jewish worshippers to add prayers of penitence following the Amidah. What began as an opportunity for prayers from the heart became standardized and expected, relying on the words of the prophets and the psalmists to confess our sins and ask for Divine forgiveness. Today, too many of our community’s leaders who claim to speak for us, including our modern day psalmists [and I would add today, in the spirit of Parashat Shoftim, our modern day prophets who the parasha warns us to be discerning about, who may choose a prophecy that suits their own comfort over what we really need as a people] who have in the past given voice to our grief, our hope, and our deepest Jewish values, have stopped short when it comes to penitence in this crucial moment. When the traditional Tachanun calls upon the ‘Guardian of Israel,’ we must ask ourselves, how is it we wish to be guarded, and from whom? [Which mitzvot will we choose to follow, and how? What kind of world do we wish to create?] We are not omniscient or omnipotent, and cannot claim to know all the correct steps toward lasting peace, we know we must now lift ourselves up from our despair and do the best we can. Eyes forward, hearts open, we move toward reconciliation and justice.”