Shalom Friends;
This week, our Parshat HaShevua, Parshat Shoftim is sponsored by Dov and Bracha Moses of Ramat Beit Shemesh and dedicated for the aufruf this Shabbos of their son Amitai Yaakov and the upcoming chassuna of Amitai Yaakov to Yael Mayer. To the Moses family, many thanks for your sponsorship and for your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
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This author penned this Parshat HaShevua under the heavy cloud of recent “PA” terror attacks; at Har HaBayit (The Temple Mount) where two Israeli Druze policemen were murdered, and on the family in Halamish during their Shabbos dinner where three family members were brutally murdered.
Our Parshat Shoftim opens with the Torah requirement of appointment of judges, and officers of the court to enforce judicial decisions with righteous judgement. The third posuk of our parsha reads:
“Tzedek, Tzedek tierdof…” Righteousness, righteousness (also rendered Justice, Justice) you shall pursue that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord, your G’d gives you.” (Sefer Devarim, Perek 16, posuk 20)
Such righteousness in judgement must not be prejudiced by bribes, gifts, appearance of, or financial position of either litigant.
But let’s return to our Parsha’s opening posuk:
“Judges and Officers shall you appoint in all of your cities — which Hashem… gives you — for your tribes…” (Translation rendered by The Artscroll Stone Chumash, Sefer Devarim, Perek 16, posuk 18)
What about those “officers of the court”?
The Artscroll Stone Chumash (page 1024) explains:
Officers of the court who… would circulate in the markets and streets to enforce standards of honesty and summon violators to the court for adjudication. (citing Rambam Hilchot Sanhedrin, and Ramban)
The Sapirstein Edition Chumash Sefer Devarim “The Torah: With Rashi’s Commentary (page 182) renders Rashi:
“Officers” who impose authority over the people following the order of [the Judges]; with stick and with strap…
In short, these explanations indicate application of righteousness of judgement to police, law enforcement. And the paradigm posuk of our Parshat: “Tzedek, Tzedek tierdof (Justice, Justice) shall you pursue” would seem to apply to law enforcement to at least the same extent as to Judges and Judicary.
Bearing the above in mind, Aharon Yaakov Greenberg, in his Sefer “Torah Gems” provides a jaw-dropping commentary citing Derashot El Ami: “Tzedek, Tzedek tierdof…”:
“Justice alone is not enough, because there are many types of justice, just as there are many kinds of truth. Every regime has it’s own justice. The Torah therefore stresses ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue…’, namely the justice of justice, where both the means and the end are just.” (Torah Gems, Aharon Yaakov Greenberg, Volume 3, Parsha Shoftim page 257)
Doesn’t that “Every regime has it’s own justice” characterize an Israeli media, ministerial, law enforcement, military and judiciary in lock-step with the conviction of a soldier whose “crime” was insuring that an apparently mortally wounded terrorist was, in fact, dead after said terrorist carried out an attack in Hevron and “may have been attempting to activate an explosive device concealed inside his jacket” ? Or when Israel’s “supreme court” decided to partially destroy the home of the terrorist who brutally and mortally attacked and killed a 13 year old girl as she slept in her bed in Kiryat Arba? And these two citings don’t even begin to scratch the surface regarding the “justice (sic)” of the current and successive regimes
We observe the abovementioned fatal terror attack at Har HaBayit, with the resultant controversy and Israeli government equivocation under pressure caused by PA Arab protestations and rioting claiming “change in the status quo” concerning police installation of hi-tech metal detectors and surveillance cameras at the entrance of Har HaBayit. This so-called “change in the status quo” is used as a phony pretext for PA Arab violence, including the brutal terror slaughter of the three family members in Halamish as they sat eating their Shabbos dinner. The government succumbed to this pressure and removed the metal detectors and surveillance cameras in order to secure release by Jordanian authorities of a guard who was attacked by Arabs in the Israeli Embassy in Amman, Jordan.
At this time in Medinat Yisrael, we must add emphasis to that term “officers.” We see how the officers — Israel’s “Finest(sic)”, those who are charged with implementation and enforcement of “law”, i.e. apprehending wrong-doers, as well as the “Judges” of “law”, repeatedly pervert, subvert and bend their “law” through selective enforcement, selective apprehension with emphasis on Jews despite PA terror, and how the “judges judge” through selective judgement — “justice” according to agenda. Such “justice” by law enforcement and judiciary apparently suits the needs of a regime under the control of a handful; the agendized elitists, our own swamp, who dominate the ministerial bureaucracies, the universities, the print and electronic media and the few wealthy families where the financial wealth of the nation is concentrated. These socialist, leftist agendized elites have their tentacles in every Israeli governmental, educational, media and economic institution — Top, bottom, “upside down… inside out and round and round.” So, in the current state of Israeli governance and “justice”, these “officers” indoctrinate, brainwash and intimidate against both Torah and the spirit of Jewish justice.
Have we allowed the “law” to evolve into being the “law” by agenda (read leftist agenda) only, with those indoctrinated and agendized toward the socialist, leftist line — “a state of all its people”, etc. being basically above the “law”? Have we allowed the “law” and biased law enforcement to persecute those who cleave to Eretz Yisrael?
Hmm, a regime controlled by agendized elitists who dominate the ministerial bureaucracies, the universities, the print and electronic media…. and whose socialist, leftist agendized elite — Israel’s swamp — have their tentacles in every Israeli governmental, educational, media and economic institution? Isn’t it about time that Torah Jews got themselves unified, on the same page and took back Israel?
Can it be that the subverted or seduced city (Ir HaNidachas), which serves as the basis for the final Mishne of Perek Cheilik of Gemora Tractate Sanhedrin, relates to this and successive regimes, has a direct connection to the absence of “Tzedek, Tzedek tierdof…”:
That connection appears to be between subversion of the governed and the application of judgement and law enforcement based on subverted law, rather than Torah law.
“Righteousness, righteousness you shall pursue that you may live and inherit the land.”
The bottom-line; An honest, morally clean, straight-forward, self-respecting Jewish government would not maneuver and agendize itself into being controlled by the nations, or by those who subvert within who would look after their own national legacy. Instead, Israel’s corrupt and immoral leaders subject and subordinate themselves and the nation to the follies their own subversion and that of others at our collective, dire physical and spiritual peril. Thus, while the penalties of the subverted city may not apply, it seems obvious that in faith-based governance, charges of treason against an agendized swamp of subversion may.
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them and that the expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes, at government expense; both due to alt-leftist-agendized, supreme court legalized Yassamnik gunpoint. May our dear brother Jonathan Pollard be liberated and truly free — only upon his return home to Israel, and that Sholom Rubashkin, as well as the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of three years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt is an Oleh, writer and commentator on news and events in Eretz Yisrael. He is the founder and director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network and lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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