Parashat Shoftim
Joe Gindi, Jewish Studies Teacher
As I write these words, my heart, and my newsfeed, is filled with news about the recovery of the bodies of six Israeli hostages in Gaza, including Bay Area native Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and the Israeli public’s responses of sorrow, frustration and rage at Hamas and at the Israeli government’s conduct of the war.
When I signed up to write this dvar torah on Parashat Shoftim I was not expecting that there would be an active public referendum on leadership, justice, and national priorities roiling Israel in the wake of last Sunday’s news. Shoftim, which means judges, is all about just governance and just war. Reading these norms of ancient warfare in light of contemporary humanitarian ethics and the ongoing war in Gaza has left me spinning.
My heart breaks reading the passages in this week’s parasha that explain that those who have unfinished business – an undedicated house, an unharvested field, and unconsummated marriage – return home rather than fight (Deut. 20: 5-8). I instantly thought of Alexander Lobanov, a hostage whose body was recovered this week whose wife gave birth to his son while he was in captivity. We all, though, are living lives in motion. Who in the region doesn’t have ongoing relationships, projects, or lives that are disrupted by this war? What would it really mean to exclude from war all of those with unfinished business?
On the other hand, Shoftim’s description of war itself is hard for me to read for a different reason. Deuteronomy 20:10-15 describes the process of territorial expansion, wherein Israelites are instructed to offer residents of a village the choice of submitting to the Israelites as slave laborers or fighting this occupying force. If defeated, all the men are to be exterminated, and the women and children taken as spoils. In a moment where the Jewish world is debating the proper conduct of war, and the proper terms for peace, what does it mean that our tradition even contemplates this outcome as a possible administration of justice? How can we make sure this approach isn’t guiding any part of the conduct of war?
This parasha does, though, contain perhaps the Jewish text on justice that is most frequently evoked today. One employed by Jewish groups across the political spectrum. “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof,” justice, justice you shall pursue, our parasha famously proclaims. Less famous is the second half of the verse. “In order that you may thrive and possess the land your God ה׳ is giving you” (Deut 16:20). Is there an implied cause and effect here? Does possession of the land depend on pursuing justice? Rashi implies as much when he describes the appointment of honest judges as the basis for securely living in the land (Rashi on Deut. 16:20). This idea that our inheritance of the land depends on our conduct is embedded in the third paragraph of the Shema “If you harken to the commandments…” (Deut. 11:13) and the rabbinic narrative that exile is the result of hatred within the Jewish community (Yoma 9b).
And still, we are left with debates over what pursuing justice actually looks like. For some in the Jewish community today justice looks likes rooting out Hamas, to “sweep out evil from your midst” – as Deutoronomy commands in regard to the execution of false prophets (13:6), those who disobey court rulings (17:12), false witnesses (19:19), stubborn and rebellious children (21:21), and kidnappers (24:7). For others, justice looks like turning over every stone to bring back the hostages as soon as possible. “There is no greater mitzvah than the redemption of captives” (Mishneh Torah, Matanot Ani’im 8). And for others, justice demands a surgical response that minimizes Palestinian suffering and death, embodied in Avraham’s plea to God that the innocent not perish with the guilty. “[Heaven] forbid for you to do a thing like this, to deal death to the innocent along with the guilty… The judge of all the earth—will he not do what is just?” (Genesis 18:15, Everett Fox trans.). Of course, in different moments, as we cycle through the different emotions welling up within each of us, we may find one or another of these approaches to justice more compelling or meaningful.
I pray that as we grapple with these challenges as a global community, we can ultimately make the choices that lead us to inherit this land by the merit of our pursuit of justice.
