Shoftim
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שפטים ושטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך אשר ה' אלקיך נתן לך לשבטיך ושפטו את העם משפט צדק. לא תטה משפט לא תכיר פנים ולא תקח שחד כי השחד יעור עיני חכמים ויסלף דברי צדקים. צדק צדק תרדוף למען תחיה וירשת את הארץ (טז, יח-כ).
Judges and officers shall you appoint for yourselves in all of your gates which Hashem your G-d is giving to you, and they shall judge the nation with correct judgement. You shall not pervert justice; you shall not demonstrate favoritism; and you shall not take bribery, for bribery will blind the eyes of the wise and distort the words of the just. You shall pursue excess correctness, in order that you shall live and inherit the land.
The mishnah states in Avos, אל תדין את חבירך עד שתגיע למקומו, Do not judge your fellow until you have been in his place*. The Chassid Yavetz explains that this teaches an important principle in interpersonal matters. When determining how to react to the actions of others, ask yourself a simple question: How would you expect others to react if you did the same thing? Often, the answer to that question is markedly different than that which you were planning to do. By not judging your fellow, i.e., determining how to react to him, until you have mentally placed yourself in his shoes and imagined how others would react to you, your reaction will be far more reasonable.
I would add that our opening verse can be understood in this light as well. שפטים ושטרים תתן לך, your standard of judgement should first be applied to yourself before it is applied to others.
As far as the double expression of שפטים ושטרים goes, I would reference the notion that in war, the goal is to seize control of the enemy territory’s gate. So, too, in the spiritual war between Man and his Evil Inclination, the focus of the fighting is Man’s personal gates, namely, the senses through which the external world is assimilated into his heart and mind. ** As enumerated in Sefer Yetzirah,*** they are the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and the mouth. Regarding each one of these “gates,” a person must be vigilant, exercising extreme caution as to what he sees, hears, smells, and speaks. He must, in effect, preside in judgement over them. However, that is not sufficient. He must also act as an officer, enforcing these decisions. For example, if he gazes at inappropriate sights, he might fine himself as a means of bringing his behavior into line.
Thus, our verse states, שפטים ושטרים תתך לך בכל שעריך, you must assume the role of judge and officer over all of your sensory gates. If one makes these necessary efforts, not only will he be successful in bringing them in sync with Hashem’s will, Hashem will extend this control to those limbs which are beyond deliberate training. As the Talmud**** says about Avraham, his extraordinary self-discipline won him control of all of his 248 limbs.
What about ושפטו את העם משפט צדק? For this we can cite an interpretation of a verse in Esther****** from the Rema in his Mechir Yayin. It says, יעשו עץ גבוה חמשים אמה, they shall construct gallows fifty amos high. The allusion is to when the Yetzer ha-Ra finds it impossible to directly entice a person to sin. He therefore engages in a bit of guile (עץ in the sense of עצה, advice): he convinces the individual to attempt very ambitious accomplishments in his spiritual growth (גבוה חמשים אמה). The hope is that by having him overreach, he will fail and his whole inner world will collapse. It is out of concern for this tactic that our verse warns that one should be judicious in his regulation of his senses, not being too heavy-handed.
One must also be wary of ulterior motives. Man is prone to veer to the goal of ארך ימים בימינה, length of days at [the Torah’s] right, or that of בשמאלה עושר וכבוד, wealth and honor are at its left******. As such, we are warned, לא תטה משפט, do not stray in your deliberations.
This is followed by לא תכיר פנים. As the Chovos ha-Levavos ******* describes, another of the Yetzer ha-Ra’s stratagems is to convince his target to focus on becoming chummy with others, with the hope that greater sociability will erode his spiritual accomplishments. To this end, the Yetzer lectures his subject about all of the sources that extoll the importance of being a man of the people. In warning, the verse states, לא תכירו פנים, do not be excessively concerned with getting to know others.
The next concern of the Torah is also discussed in the Chovos ha-Levavos. Sometimes the Yetzer will encourage an individual to be overly concerned about displaying piety, lest he lose his reward due to the praise of others. As such, he is encouraged to conduct himself religiously as a common man, fraternizing with riffraff, and the like. As the Chovos ha-Levavos explains, this only exchanges a small concern for a larger problem, as such conduct will eventually unravel one’s very religiosity. To this the verse warns, לא תקח שחד, in the sense that the Talmud takes the term שוחד – שהוא חד,******** it unifies the briber and the bribed. One must be wary of becoming of one mind with his Yetzer ha-Ra, for יעור עיני חכמים ויסלף דברי צדיקים, as it will slowly and insidiously change him from a חכם into a לץ, a scoffer, and from a צדיק into a רשע, a wicked person. Rather, the correct approach is צדק צדק תרדוף, to pursue righteousness for its own sake. If one receives praise or honor for it, so be it; so long as his intention is pure, it doesn’t detract from its value.
למען תחיה וירשת את הארץ, the term הארץ here is ambiguous, encompassing both This World and the Next. As the Ramban********* writes, the nature of one’s reward – how and when it will be received – parallels the degree of selflessness that he invested it with.
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* 2:4.** See Nedarim 32b, based on Koheles 9:14-15, where the human body is depicted as a city besieged by the Evil Inclination. *** 4:12. **** Nedarim, ibid. ***** 5:14. ****** Mishlei 3:16. See Olelos Ephrayim 177 for a similar exposition.******* 5:5. ******** Kesubos 105a. ********* Vayikra 18:4.
Judges and officers shall you appoint for yourself in all of your gates… in order that you shall live and inherit the land.
One difficulty with this verse is that the mitzvah in question is only applicable after the land has already been settled. As such, how does its merit allow for the conquest of the land? The Sages* resolve this by explaining it as the maintenance of our hold on the land.
And, as our standard query goes, how is this mitzvah relevant today?**
Let us begin with a passage in Shabbos***. R. Yose b. Elisha taught: If you see a generation plagued by many misfortunes, investigate its judges, for all misfortune that comes to the world is only on account of the judges of Israel, as the verse states, Its heads judge with bribery, its priests issue rulings for payment, and its prophets augur for money.**** They were wicked, yet they placed their trust in the One-who-spoke-and-the-world-came-into-being. Thus, the Holy One, Blessed be He, brought upon them three punishments, corresponding to their three sins, as it says, Therefore, on your account…*****
There are a number of observations to make about this passage. Firstly, how can it state that the sole cause of misfortune is corruption and that it was corruption that caused the destruction of Zion – doesn’t another passage attribute the latter to the failure to judge beyond the letter of the law?****** In fact, Tosafos there has a similar quandary, wondering how it squares with the gemara in Yoma that it was baseless hatred that brought the Second Temple down.*******
Secondly, what is the relevance of the corrupt judges’ so-called “trust in Hashem” to this passage? Thirdly, Rashi’s language in Shabbos implies that the three punishments are a response to the three sins enumerated in the verse. Yet, as the Maharsha there observes, the language there indicates that it is a response to their supposed trust in Hashem. I would add that that alternative is also problematic, for it gives the impression that were it not for their “trust” they would not be deserving of punishment – an implausible conclusion.
Aside from this, what does it mean that these wicked people placed their trust in Hashem? And what is the significance of the exacting three punishments for the three sins?
I would suggest to resolve these issues with a thought that I heard in the name of my mentor, the Besht. The familiar verse says, רצון יראיו יעשה ואת שועתם ישמע ויושיעם, He carries out the will of those who fear Him, and He hears their cries and saves them.******** Now, if He has already carried out their will, what is there to save them from? At the least, the order should have been inverted. He explained that Hashem listens to all prayers, for the better or for the worse. As the famous rabbinic line goes*********, A thief calls out to Hashem at the mouth of the tunnel, to be successful in his heist. Is there no preference, then, to the prayers of the righteous over those of the wicked? The difference lies in what occurs later. If the wicked is caught due to his crime, his subsequent cries to Hashem to be saved will be ignored – after all, he got himself into his predicament. But if a righteous person is granted his wish and comes to regret it, Hashem will intervene a second time. Thus, He carries out the will of those who fear Him even when He knows that it is to their detriment; and when they realize that themselves, He hears their cries and saves them.
This is reminiscent of another thought which I have heard, this time in the name of R. Yoel. He was troubled by the rabbinic statement that Hashem declared, הלואי אותי עזבו ותורתי שמרו, If only [the Jewish People] had abandoned Me, yet safeguarded My Torah.********** He explained it by way of the aforementioned teaching regarding the prayer of the thief. Why, indeed, is his prayer answered for an illegal matter? One answer is that this demonstrates the extent of Man’s potential free will. If his prayer would be categorically ignored, it would limit the scope of the evil that he is capable of. Another answer is that this will hopefully spur him to change his ways: if Hashem is so close to Him that He heeds his petitions to do bad, certainly He is available to assist him in being good. Be as it may, it is the thief’s confidence in Hashem’s assistance that prompts him to act wantonly; had it been absent, he may, by default, have reverted to observance of the prohibition to steal. Hence, Hashem’s plaintive cry: If only he had ignored Me, i.e., not have had confidence in My assistance in his crimes, he would have safeguarded My Torah, by heeding its ban on theft!
Now, lest one think that all thieves are so pious, let us remember that there is another type, one who denies any Divine supervision of Man’s activities. The difference between these two classes, to my mind, is that the former deserves to be punished measure-for-measure, whereas the latter does not. Why? Tehillim states, ולך ה' חסד כי אתה תשלם לאיש כמעשהו, Unto You, Hashem, is kindness, for You repay a man in accordance with his deed.*********** How is it kindness to repay measure-for-measure? Because, as the Alshich explains,************ the display of Providence will grab the attention of the punished party, inspiring him to mend his ways lest he be further punished. Now, this will only be effective for our Class A sinner. As one who acknowledges Hashem’s involvement in life – as evidenced by His “assistance” in his sins – he is receptive to getting the message of the tailor-made punishment. The Class B sinner, however, does not stand to gain from such intervention. As one who denies any Divine activity in the world, such messages would fall on deaf ears.
This, then, is the meaning of the passage in Shabbos. The corrupt judges may be wicked, but they have a redeeming quality in that they place their trust in Hashem. As bona fide Class A sinners they are a prime audience for measure-for-measure Providence. It follows, then, that they deserved to be punished for their three infractions with three punishments, so as to shake them out of their ways.
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* Sifrei. ** [Apparently, the Jewish presence in the land of Israel, replete with a judicial system, in the author’s lifetime was not significant enough, to his mind, to warrant the application of this teaching.] *** 139a. ****Michah 3:11. ***** Ibid., 12. ******Bava Metzia 30b. ******* 9b.********Tehillim 145:19. *********Ein Yaakov, Berachos 63a. ********** Eichah Rabbasi, Pesichta, 2.*********** 62:13. ************ Vayikra 9:1.