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The Leader as Servant

…all holy and close to God, why should there be special priests or a leader like Moshe? Or why not be like the time of the Shoftim, when leaders just stepped up during a crisis and then went back to normal life? Why give so much power to Moshe and Aharon? If everyone is already holy, why do we need…

To Lead is to Serve

Our parsha talks about monarchy: “When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the surrounding nations,” set over you a king whom the Lord your God chooses.” (Deut. 17:14-15). So it should be…

Greatness is Humility

There is a fascinating detail in the passage about the king in this week’s parsha. The text says that “When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a copy of this Torah on a scroll before the levitical priests.” Deut. 17:18 He must “read it all the days of his life” so that he will…

Testing Prophecy

In his enumeration of the various leadership roles within the nation that would take shape after his death, Moses mentions not only the priest/judge and king but also the prophet: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.” Moses would not be the last of…

The Consent of the Governed

The contribution of Tanach, the Hebrew Bible, to political thought is fundamental, but not well known. In this study I want to look at the institution of monarchy. What does it tell us about the nature of government as the Torah understands it? The command relating to a king opens with these words: “When you enter the land the Lord…

Shattering the Idols: The Struggle for Holiness in a Secular Age

…libertarianism, the condition that Sefer Shoftim describes as ish ha-yashar be-einav ya’aseh, “each doing what is right in his own eyes.” This presents Jews with a paradoxical situation. Never have we been freer to be Jews, but rarely have we faced a culture more antithetical to the values of Judaism, not superficially but at its very roots. Under such circumstances,…

The Revolutionary Power and Importance of Talmud Study

…kvodo kvodo machul. Nasi sheMochel al kvodo kvodo machul. Melech sheMochel al kvodo ein kvodo machul.” A king is not allowed to renounce the honour. The king is the most honoured person in the whole Jewish people, and yet the Torah says explicitly in Parashat Shoftim that he has to read the Torah every day, “levilti rum levavo m’echav,” so…

Not in God’s Name: University of Chicago event

…It’s fascinating to read John Milton and suddenly find him quoting Rabbeinu Bachya al HaTorah, you know, on Parashat Shoftim. So, these were steeped because Masechet Sanhedrin, the Rambam’s Hilchot Melachim, and all these texts had been translated into Latin by the Christian Hebraists and were thus part of the universal language of scholarship in the 16th and 17th centuries….

A Tale of Two Women

…man and Ketubim, the words of human beings to God. And that’s why the book of Ruth appears in Ketubim. But if you were just ordering them chronologically, where would you place the book? It comes after Shoftim. And before Sefer Shmuel, the end of the Book of Judges, the beginning of the book, the four books of Kings, Samuel…

Confusing Satan

…ein lanu Melech ela atah, “we have no King, but you,” In Israel, God’s kingship was manifest. And that is what happened during the whole of the biblical era. Either Israel had no kings, they had shoftim, they had Judges, charismatic military leaders, or they had kings beginning with Saul, David, Solomon. But uniquely in biblical kingship, biblical kingship is…

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