Shoftim

The sicha for parshas Shoftim is in Vol. II of Likkutei Sichos.

We’ve spoken at length on many occasions that Ellul is an areh miklat, like a city of refuge, where a person can escape and be protected by the month of Ellul, like a city of refuge protected those who killed or shed blood accidentally.

In addition to all that we have spoken about, we find that the Midrash says, that the commandment to have shoftim v’shotrim, the judges and the policeman, the enforcers that every city were supposed to have, applies not only to settlements and communities in Eretz Israel, but also in Jewish communities outside Eretz Israel. Then the Midrash goes on to say, now you might think that the areh miklat, the cities of refuge should also exist outside Eretz Israel. So we are told, “ these are the places where you should make this cities of refuge and not outside Eretz Israel.” On the other hand, the Midrash says, that although there were no cities of refuge outside of Eretz Israel, if someone had killed accidentally outside of Eretz Israel, he can be protected and absorbed into the cities of refuge that existed inside Eretz Israel.

So from the fact that the Midrash compares or equates the establishment of judges and enforcers to the building of the areh miklat, the cities of refuge, by saying that because judges and enforcers were necessary outside of Eretz Israel we would think that the areh miklat should also be outside Eretz Israel, we see from this that there is a strong connection between shoftim and areh miklat.

The idea of judges and enforcers was not merely to punish someone who sinned. Rather the purpose of the enforcement or the punishment was in order to cleanse those who have sinned. And the same is true of the exile of having to go to a city of refuge. Golus is m’haperes, it brings purification. Kapara, as the Alter Rebbe explains in Igeret HaTshuva, doesn’t mean forgiveness. It means cleansing. That which brings kapara washes away the blemish of the sin – that’s already after the sin has been forgiven because of the tshuva.

Therefore when we say that golus is m’haperes, it means that golus cleanses and washes away the blemish of the sin. And so it is also with the punishment that is given for sin. The enforcement of the courts that punish the sinner is for the purpose of cleansing and washing away the blemishes and the after-effects of the sin. Therefore, the person who had sin is not only a forgiven sinner, he is once again as desirable and as acceptable as he was before he sinned.

So since the purpose and the function of the judges and the enforcers and the areh miklat  are the same - the judges and the enforcers are there to cleanse away the ill effects of a sin from a person who had sinned, and the areh miklat, which is a form of golus, when you have to in this city which is not yours, the purpose and the effect is also one of cleansing and washing away the blemish – that’s why we would think that wherever there are judges and enforcers there would also need to be cities of refuge.

And in fact, you would think they need to be outside of Israel even more than inside of Israel. Because Eretz Israel, Eretz Hakodesh, the Holy Land, means a place where the desire of G-dliness is strong. Chutz L’ Eretz, outside of the Land, would mean outside of that desire to serve G-d, of the desire to do G-d’s will. So you would think that outside that desire, in a place where that desire does not exist, outside of the Eretz, there would be a greater need for the areh miklat, and that you should have cities of refuge outside of Israel. And yet we are told that judges and enforcers we need to have outside of Israel, but the cities of refuge only in Israel.

To understand this properly, the Rebbe says that there are really two parts to tshuva. One is the regret for the past, regretting the sin that is already committed, and the second part is, making a strong resolution concerning the future. Because what good is regret if in the future the sin will repeat itself. So you have to have strong resolution that precludes the repeat of the sin in order that the regret should be meaningful and significant. If there is a regret for the past sin but no strong resolution to be rid of the sin in the future, then it’s like going to the mikva while holding on to that which makes you unclean.

So the city of refuge had to be in Eretz Israel, in the Holy Land. Because if he remains outside of the Holy Land, in other words he wants forgiveness for what he had done in the past but he doesn’t enter into the desire to fulfill G-d’s will, into the Holy Land, meaning the holy desires, the holy will to serve G-d, and remains outside of that desire, then what good is the regret for the sins that he already committed.

But a person who has committed a sin outside of Israel and wants to be absorbed into the areh miklat inside of Israel, that’s the place that he should go to. In other words, as it says about the unintentional killer, he has run away and flee to the city of refuge. He has to run away from a place that is chutz l’eretz, a place that is outside the will of G-dliness, the will to serve G-d, and he comes to Eretz Israel, to this new role, a new resolution for the future, that in the future he will serve G-d and that he wants to serve G-d. Then he is surrounded and absorbed into the areh miklat of Eretz Israel.

On the other hand, the judges and the enforcers cannot be in Israel. For the people outside of Israel, outside the desire to serve G-d, the judges and the enforcers have to be there in the same place where the person who is sinning. Because in order to judge you first have to put yourself in the place of the person who has sinned. You can’t judge someone unless you have been in his place. So the judges in Israel cannot appreciate, cannot fully understand the difficulties that one faces when he exists or lives outside of Eretz Israel, in golus. They can’t appreciate and understand the concealment of G-dliness that exists outside of Israel, and how difficult this makes it for a person to think and speak and do

G-dliness and how much effort it takes in order to overcome all the trials and all the tests that one faces outside of the holy land, outside of the holy will. In Eretz Israel, a place where G-d’s eye is upon the land from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, the people who live in that condition, can have no appreciation of what it is like to live outside of Israel and the difficulties that that causes. So they can’t judge because they haven’t been in that place.

There is the famous story of the Mitteler Rebbe who was receiving people for yechidus, for private audience, and also with the Tzemach Tzedek, an incident happened where in the middle of receiving the guests, the Rebbe asked that the visitations be interrupted for a certain amount of time and then they were resumed. When they asked the Rebbe what had happened, the Rebbe explained that when a person comes and asks for advice on how to rectify a sin, the only way to give good advice is to find within oneself that same sin on a subtle level. Someone had come and asked the Rebbe for advice on how to rectify a really base sin, and the Rebbe couldn’t find in himself even in a subtle form a similar sin and that’s why he needed to take a break to work out an answer to give to this person.

So we see that you can’t really judge and help another person with their problems unless you can put yourself in their place and find within yourself that same problem or that same flaw. And that’s why we find that when Moshe was on the mountain, in the heavens, receiving the Torah, and down back on earth, the Jews were making a golden calf, G-d said to Moshe, go down because your people have become corrupt.

So Moshe, who was in the heaven of heavens, not eating nor drinking, and the Jews were down below in the lowest condition of idolatry, G-d says, go down because your people have become corrupt. In that way, Moshe was able to judge them and to argue their case because he identified with them as his people, and he went down to their place to see their corruption. Then he pleaded their case and was able to win forgiveness for them. But remaining up in heaven, he was of no use, of no service to the people, because he couldn’t appreciate their condition.

And the same is true, the Alter Rebbe writes, why angels cannot judge human beings because they don’t appreciate the difficulties of the human condition. So only a human being, a neshama in a body, can appreciate what a human being goes through. And that’s why the judges and the enforcers couldn’t be in Israel, and judge and enforce behavior outside of Israel; there had to be judges and enforcers whho lived with the people outside of Israel.

Now although the areh miklat, the cities of refuge, had to be in Eretz Israel, yet even in Eretz Israel, there were various levels. We find that there were cities of refuge on the east bank of the Jordan, and then there were those that were in Israel proper, which is on a higher level, a holier level. We are told that after Moshiach comes, and the borders of Israel are extended, then we will build additional cities of refuge, obviously again on an even higher level than Israel proper of today.

That means that this phenomena of a person spilling the blood of another person, shedding another person’s blood, also exists on many, many levels. And for each level there is a city of refuge, there is a rectification of that level of bloodshed.

And even in the world to come, even with Moshiach, there will be a condition in which a person is not serving G-d properly and thereby shedding his own blood, the level that he could have been on and for that he needs an areh miklat. Because on every level, there is the service that is appropriate to that level, and then there is the failure to live up to that service, each one according to his level, as it says, “ it is G-d that you should serve, and it is to Him that you should cleave” So the Rebbe says, a person who is on the level where he could be cleaving to G-d, instead he is only serving G-d, for that he has to do tshuva.

So this is the idea of the month of Ellul, when a person has to make an accounting of himself, which is the idea of the areh miklat, the accounting has to be each person according to his level. You have to take into account all the thought, speech and deeds in the course of the past year and see whether they were according to Shulchan Aruch. A higher level is to see if they were beyond the letter of the law. The person who is capable and is on the level where he should be serving G-d beyond the letter of the law, has to take into account whether he lived up to that potential.

Then there is an even higher level. Even if he went beyond the letter of the law, was it to the full extent of his capacity and ability? As the expression is, according to the camel is its load. So that even if everything he did, thought and said was according to Shulchan Aruch, what’s more it was even beyond the letter of the law, but it was not all that he could do, he could have done even more than that, then for that he has to do tshuva.

And so a person who is involved all year in business and the person who spends all the time sitting in yeshiva, surrounded by holiness all year, each of them has to do tshuva on their own level.  Because the person who sits in the yeshiva all year and the study of Torah is his life, even he has to make an account to see if he has lived up to the level of mitzvas that he is capable of.

It is the habit in this country that during the month of Ellul and Tishrei, the yeshivas close and all the talmidim, all the students go home, which is the exact opposite of what really should happen. Logic and intelligence dictate that in this time, in this special time, instead of going home, this should be a time that regardless of what else was happening in the course of the rest of the year, at least these days, he should be devoted completely to getting closer to G-dliness and not to go home.

And this is also lesson for people who spend their year involved in business. When it comes to the month of Ellul, or at least the 18th day of the month of Ellul, the last 12 days of the month of Ellul, where each day represents a month of the past year, or at the very least, to the days of selichot, the week before Rosh Hashanah, even a person who all year is involved in business, should run away from his business, as it says, considering the cities of refuge, to flee there and to be surrounded, and to be settled in, to live in the city of refuge, to be absorbed in holiness, at least for those days of the month of Ellul.

And through this avodah, through this taking account of oneself in the month of Ellul, fleeing, running away to an environment of holiness, that is the proper, correct preparation to receiving from G-d a kasiva v’chasima tova on Rosh Hashanah, that we should be inscribed for good and sweet year, and all our needs, in children and in health and in sustenance.

In volume IV of Likkutei Sichos, the Rebbe says on the verse from our parsha, that a person is a tree in the field. The Sifrei says this shows us that a person lives mostly, primarily from a tree. Although a person eats many different kinds of foods, he lives mainly from a tree.  So the question is, where do we see that a person lives from a tree more than from other foods?

In Likkutei Torah, the Alter Rebbe explains that bread satisfies the human heart. There the Rebbe says that although a person eats meat as well, the main satisfaction, the main sustenance a person gets is from bread.  And the reason for that is that the vegetable, which is bread, can better satisfy and nurture the person, because it is lower than the meat that comes from an animal, which is the level of the chai.  The higher the Divine source, the lower it comes in creation. The lower something is, the greater is the hidden word of G-d that sustains the human being.

So the fact is that the human being gains life and energy by eating that which is lower than him. However, it is the word of G-d, as it says, not by bread alone, but by the word of G-d, it is the word of G-d in the bread that gives life and energy to the person.  And the word of G-d that is in the bread is higher and greater than the word of G-d in the meat, in the animal. And because bread comes from the vegetable world, which is lower than the animal world, therefore it carries a greater G-dly source.

This is also why the kosher animal lives mainly off vegetation.  So when a person eats meat, the energy that he is getting is not only from the word of G-d that creates the animal, but also from the word of G-d that creates the vegetable, which is in the animal, from which the animal lives.  And that's why the Midrash says, that the person lives primarily from the tree, because the tree is the primary vegetation, the most prominent vegetation.  And it is from the word of God in the vegetable kingdom that we get most of our satisfaction, more so than from meat.

In explaining the Rashi in our parsha, the Rebbe writes that most of the authorities, who enumerate the 613 mitzvas, count the commandment of appointing shoftim v’shotrim, judges and enforcers, as one mitzva, not two.  Why is it that this is all one mitzva?  So the Rebbe explains that there are two functions that a shoter, an enforcer, has.  If the idea of the enforcer is that he actually carries out the verdict that the judges reach, as for example, if the judges decide that a certain person should receive lashes, malkas, then the shoter was the one who actually administered the lashes.  If that's what enforcer was, then the enforcer is an integral part of the judgment, and should be considered another mitzva.  But if the function of the shoter is that when the judge reaches the verdict and the accused, the guilty party, doesn't want to abide by that judgment, then you have to have someone who will force him, convince him, to behave according to the verdict.  As for example, if the judge finds that so-and-so has to pay money to his employee, or to his employer, and the person refuses to pay the money, then you need an enforcer to encourage and to ensure that the person will do what the judge says.

In that case, not every decision of the judge needs a shoter to make it happen. Generally the judge makes it happen by his judgment and his verdict.  If in certain circumstances, there is a belligerent party, who needs to be convinced to obey the judge, then the shoter comes in to do his job.  But then he is merely an assistant helping the judge accomplish what a judge is supposed to accomplish.  And so appointing enforcers is not counted as a mitzva by itself, one of the 613 mitzvas, it is merely a support for the judge.  So appointing the judge is the mitzva, and the judge might at times need an enforcer to enable him, to help him carry out his job, the job of the judge, not the job of the enforcer.

On a spiritual level, judges and enforcers apply also to a human being within himself, that a person has to appoint and establish with his own existence, with his own being, judges and enforcers.  Judges mean the study of Torah, to know right from wrong, and enforcers mean to action carry out the instruction of Torah, to live by the halachah.

So the understanding that the fact that the shoter is not a mitzva by itself, how does that translate into the spiritual enforcer?  What we are told is, that the judge really is the one that not only reaches the verdict but also makes the verdict happen by his own authority and only rarely, only on occasion, is there need for an enforcer.  And that's because, in the spiritual, the study of Torah really is for the purpose of doing the mitzva. Because the tachlis of chochma is tshuva and maasim tovim, as it says in the Gemarrah. The whole purpose of gaining wisdom is so that you will do tshuva and mitzvas. And if the learning doesn't bring the person to do the mitzvas, then there is something wrong in the learning itself.  So it is really the job of the learning to make the mitzva happen. Only on occasion, when the yetzer hara is really stubborn, then you have to have an enforcer, that is to get tough with your yetzer hara, and you have to scream at it and call it names and so on, in order so that it should allow you to do the mitzvas.

And that's why concerning the future, in the times of Moshiach, it doesn’t say that G-d will return judges and enforcers, it says only that G-d will reinstitute the judges as in the early years.  And that is because, in the time to come, in the days of Moshiach, there won't be any need for shotrim, for enforcement, because the learning itself will bring the doing.

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