Torah reading: Deuteronomy 16:18 to 21:9
Haftarah: Isaiah 51:12 to 52:12
The name of this week's parshah "Shoftim" - means "judges." The parsha begins on the theme of justice, and ends on the theme of justice. The parsha begins:
You shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your towns which the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial, and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 16: 18-20
And the parsha ends on the theme of justice:
If in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him. Then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not pulled in a yoke. And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every dispute and every assault shall be settled. And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. And they shall testify, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it shed. Accept atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.’ So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 21: 1-9.
What does this bizarre rite mean? And what does it have to do with justice? The Talmud, Sotah 38b, explains:
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi also said: The necessity for the heifer whose neck is to be broken only arises on account of the miserliness of spirit, as it is said: "Our hands have not shed this blood." But can it enter our minds that the elders of a Court of Justice are shedders of blood? The meaning is, [The man found dead] did not come to us for help and we dismissed him, we did not see him and let him go — he did not come to us for help and we dismissed him without supplying him with food, we did not see him and let him go without escort.
This is the Jewish concept of indirect responsibility for causing the death of another human being. If our brother or sister - and we are all brothers and sisters - comes to us for help, and we dismiss them, refusing to help, if our brothers and sisters need food but we refuse to supply them with food, if we refuse to protect our brothers and sisters in times of danger, and our brother or sister winds us dead, under Jewish theology, we are indirectly guilty of murder. The rabbis recognized that no earthly court could convict anyone for indirect responsibility - only direct responsibility can be punished. But the rabbis believed that, in the Olam HaBah, the World to Come, there will be a Heavenly Court where these heartless and insensitive people will be punished.
Which gets us to this ad that has so aroused Republican ire:
I believe that if Rabbi Joshua ben Levi could come back to life today - he lived in the early 200's - he would be holding Romney indirectly responsible for the death by cancer of Joe Soptic's wife. When you raid a business, squeezing out all the money you can, tossing workers out of their jobs, and ending their health insurance, then you must take responsibility for the inevitable consequences of your actions. I don't know if the rabbis were right about a heavenly tribunal in the Olam Habah that will judge the Mitt Romneys of this country, but I do know that he did highly immoral acts, harming his brothers and sisters, to make a fast buck.
True religious values teach us that we strive for a society where we try to help those who need help, where we make sure no one goes hungry, where we try to protect the weak and vulnerable. That was the rabbis' definition of "justice" when they compiled the Talmud, and that is what justice means today. This election will be a test of whether true religious values, and justice, prevail.
Shabbat Shalom