[00:00:00] Hello my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parsha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen and I hope you are well.
[00:00:08] For this week it's Parshas Shoftim, a jam packed Parsha with so many mitzvos and important ideas.
[00:00:17] But before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, would just like to say hello, introduce yourself.
[00:00:26] My email address is rabbi shlomo kon kohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:32] This week's Parsha is Parshas Shoftim. And Parshas Shoftim, as we said in the past weeks, is continuing Moshe Rabbeinu Soliloquy.
[00:00:43] His message of inspiration, his Chizuk, the strength he's giving to the Jewish people now before they're about to enter into the land of Israel.
[00:00:52] And also Moshe Rabbeinu in his speech to the Jewish nation, he's giving them practical instruction onto how to have a successful country, to be a successful nation.
[00:01:04] And Parasha Shoftim begins with the commandment for the Jewish people when they enter the land of Israel to set up a system of courts. And Parasha tells us exactly how the Jewish people, when they enter into the land, that they should have a court system and a policing system to enforce the laws.
[00:01:23] Parsha continues with the commandment of how to deal with this rebellious Elder. If you know, the sages give a ruling and there's an Elder also a sage who goes against them, how do we deal with him? Right, because the Torah, we have one Torah, we don't have many Torahs, there's one Torah.
[00:01:42] Parasha also tells us about the Mitzvah to appoint a king for the Jewish people, that when they enter the land of Israel, the Jewish nation are to appoint a leader for themselves, a king to rule over the Jewish nation with the ideals of the Torah. In this week's Parashat also discusses the Mitzvah of the priestly gifts. Different gifts of every animal, of the crops, of wool, of oil, had to be given to the Kohanim. So they were the teachers of the Jewish people.
[00:02:13] And the gifts that the Jewish people gave to them would support them to enable them to focus on studying and to being the spiritual teachers of the Jewish nation.
[00:02:24] We also have a very fascinating discussion that Moshe Rabbeinu tells to the Jewish nation. This week's Parasha, which is about prophecy, how God sends prophets to the Jewish people and what does it take to be a proper prophet. Right. And what to do with someone who is A false prophet. And that actually we're going to get into a little bit today, maybe some practical ideas, some lessons that we can take out of it. We also have the Mitzvah of Ori Mikla, the cities of refuge, that if somebody kills someone by accident, they have to run to a city of refuge until the death of the Cohen Gadl, which is. This is spoken about in this week's Parasha. Moshe Rabbeinu also gives the Jewish nation instructions on when they go to war, on what to do, on how to act, and the different overtures of peace that the Jewish people have to make first before going to battle.
[00:03:20] Finally, the parsha concludes with the mitzvah to preserve fruit trees, that we just can't destroy a fruit tree for no reason.
[00:03:30] And also the mitzvah of the egla Arufa, which was the axed heifer, that if somebody, if a dead person would be found, the city closest would have to do this whole procession of bringing out this calf. And different verses were recited. And they would axe the back of the calf.
[00:03:52] And this would be a. You know, this process was different. The commentary bring different reasons as to why this process is done. But the point is we're showing that the town that was closest to it, that they didn't have part in this, that the person who got killed, who killed somebody else, it wasn't because of their not caring, that he wasn't taken care of. And also there's an explanation. This whole event would create this awareness, uh, that someone is killed. And hopefully through this the killer would be found. The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parsha.
[00:04:31] The Parsha begins, shoifetim veshoitrim titin lecha b' cholerecha asher hashem elokecha nose in lecha lishvotecha v' shaftu esaam um mishpat tzedek.
[00:04:44] Judges and officers shall you appoint in all your cities, which Hashem your g D gives you for your tribes. And they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
[00:04:56] And the psukim continue. The verses continue with the conduct that a judge has to hold himself to bribes.
[00:05:08] And not turning a blind eye, not making straight words crooked.
[00:05:13] And there's a direct connection from inhabiting the land of Israel to having true justice.
[00:05:21] Now, on a deeper meaning. The commentaries explain this verse as if you look in the first posse that we said before. Shayvdim v' shoitrim titan lacha bechosarecha shashem alkeh Noise, Um, it says, judges and officers shall you appoint in all your cities which Hashem, uh, your g D. Gives you.
[00:05:47] It's interesting. The verse is, you know, it's very personal.
[00:05:53] It's in the singular.
[00:05:55] Moshe Rabbeinu, when he's giving over this mitzvah to establish a court system, he's speaking to each and every individual, right? So if you think about it for a moment, most people have nothing to do with the court system, right? The people, maybe they go to court. Hopefully you don't go to court.
[00:06:16] But this mitzvah was for the leaders of the Jewish nation to set up this court system. Why is it that Moshe Rabbeinu, right. When the Torah gives us instructions of setting up a court system, it's in a very personal, very singular tone.
[00:06:37] And, you know, there's different answers that are given. Maybe one answer could be, is that it's incumbent upon the people for them together to accept this system, that there shouldn't be a system of anarchy, that everyone is part of the country. Everyone has to accept it. There has to be a system of justice. There has to be a way to enforce the law, right? You have the judges, the courts, and also the police system.
[00:07:02] So it's really. If everybody doesn't accept it, so then it's useless.
[00:07:07] So that's maybe one understanding of why it's in a personal term. Because you can't have certain people saying, it doesn't apply to me. Everyone has to be on board with it. But on a more like, personal level and a more maybe very practical to us, a lesson that can be taken out of this is that when the posseq, when the verse says, shayvdim ve' shayt rim titan lacha, that judges and officers you shall appoint in all of your cities which Hashem, your God gave you, right? It's speaking to each and every one of us that us as individuals, aside from setting up a court system for all the Jewish people for the land of Israel, so that there should be order and civilization can thrive, each and every one of us have to appoint judges and officers. Meaning to say is we have to be the judge and we have to be the officer. And I think this really comes down to this idea of taking responsibility for our actions, being disciplined, being in control of ourselves. We have to be both the judge and the enforcer. And that means, I think, when it comes to our discipline, when it comes to all our, you know, the things we need to do, that, number one is we have to take responsibility.
[00:08:26] And number two is to Be disciplined, to, you know, to guard ourselves, to watch ourselves, to do the things we're supposed to do, to take responsibility for the actions that we need to take responsibility for. You know, to answer to ourselves that we're the judge of ourselves, we're the officer for ourselves. We have to make sure we have both aspects of being the judge and also being the officer. Right? There's this aspect of holding ourselves accountable to what we do and also at the same time, pushing ourselves to do the things we need to do. And I think maybe that idea is represented in judges and officers you shall appoint for yourself. Right? That aside from the whole nation having this court system and law enforcement mechanism, us as individuals, as Jews, we also have to appoint ourselves to be like a judge, to hold ourselves accountable, to make ourself into an officer, to push ourselves to do the things that maybe we don't always want to do. Right. But to follow them, to do them. And I think this ties into this idea of responsibility and discipline, and that's, I think, a very powerful idea. We see from the beginning of this week's parsha.
[00:09:45] The second idea I want to share with you today takes us to the verses in the Torah that tell us exactly how God operates with prophecy and prophets.
[00:10:00] And I think maybe this idea. A lot of. A lot of the ideas I talk about on the podcast, I feel that they're inspired by what I go through during the week.
[00:10:12] And during, you know, during my week, I have a lot of different experiences. And this one fellow good friend of mine, his, his name is Darren, he's, uh, a listener to the podcast, and we have different discussions. Darren is Jewish, but at the same time, he considers himself an atheist.
[00:10:32] I don't think he really is. And yes, Darren, I just said that. And one of our recent conversations actually focused on this idea of prophecy. How Hashem, how God sends his prophets to the Jewish people, and what makes a real prophet. This was a great question that Darren asked me. And actually, if you look in this week's parsha, the parsha itself discusses very clearly what makes or, uh, what it takes to be a true prophet and what happens to those who are false prophets. And what I want to do today is I want to take a few verses and a few ideas which I think are very connected to each other. Let me bring out a beautiful idea which maybe can give us some clarity on this topic. So the parsha begins regarding prophecy, telling us that the Jewish people are not like the gentile nations, and that even though the gentile nations, they do These divinations, they do animal charmers, they do these hiji beejis.
[00:11:40] We're not like that. We don't go to these, uh, psychics, we don't go to these sorcerers to know what will be in the future. But rather, what does the verse say to us? It says, m, you shall be wholehearted with Hashem, your God.
[00:11:56] And I think the first idea which I want to take out from this, and it's going to connect together to get to our question of, you know, what the correct prophecy is. What, you know, a correct prophecy, a true prophet. What, how do we know who they are and what's the significance to us? It starts with this idea.
[00:12:15] M, There's a very important concept that as Jews, we don't need to know what's going to be in the future.
[00:12:24] We don't need to go to sorcerers and to palm readers and to tarot card readers and to all the other things that are out there. And that's actually interesting.
[00:12:35] You know, I'm not going to get into this now, but there is a. You know, there could be something to be said that people could be tapping into something. You know, it's not, you know, there's koychas hatumah, these powers of impurity, what that means exactly. Maybe that's for another time. But it could be that someone could tell you something about yourself with different hiji beejis. Doesn't mean it's coming from a good place, though. But the point is us as Jews, we don't chase after these things. We don't need to do that. It's tamem tiya im hashem elokeha. We have to be wholehearted with hashem. That means we have to trust in hashem. We know what we need to do, right? The Torah tells us very clearly what we have to accomplish, what our goals are.
[00:13:18] And irrespective of what's gonna happen in the future, we have our calling and we have to follow that right? We have to follow that through no matter what. So there's no point for us. That's why it says in the Parasha, it says, you know, you are not like them. You, the Jewish people are not like the non Jewish nations where they have to go to sorcerers. When you live in a world, and this is brought down from Rabbi Hirsch, Rav Shamsher Rafael Hirsch, is that when you live in a world and there's no purpose and everything's randomness, so then you're forced to maybe find meaning and find explanation in the events that are around you. But when you live with Hashem, when you live with God and there's a, uh, system and there's a process, and you have a mission and a goal, there's no need for you, for me to try to find out what's going to be in the future and the meanings of things, right? We're not like that. We don't do that. We know that Hashem created the world. He gave us his instruction book. And everything is ultimately for our benefit. Hashem runs the world with divine providence, and therefore we know we're tamem tiya im Hashem alkecha. We're wholeheartedly with God. We have trust in Hashem that everything's gonna be okay. We need to do our part, and he will do his.
[00:14:38] Now, if you continue the verses continue.
[00:14:41] It talks about what it takes to be a true prophet.
[00:14:46] And just to, uh, really synopsize the verses. The Parsha tells us that a Navi, a prophet, right, will come from the Jewish. He'll come from the Jewish people. We have prophets. It's, you know, Moshe Rabbeinu is a prophet. And even after him, we have the prophets, the Neviim, which are part of the 24 books of the Tanakh. And the prophecies of these people are listed there for generations as a lesson for us. But we're going to see soon that the prophecy of these people is not the same as what we think of, you know, or what we think prophecy is, not the way that Hollywood has portrayed it to us in the 21st century.
[00:15:26] And the Parsha delineates for us that, uh, a Navi, a true prophet, is someone who comes from the Jewish people.
[00:15:34] And in the beginning, he needs to prove himself.
[00:15:38] He needs to prove himself with a sign or an event in the future or, um, a miraculous sign, to be more exact, to do some type of miracle or he can predict something in the future and it comes true. And after that happens. So then he. Whatever comes out of his, you know, whatever he says afterwards as a prophecy in the name of prophecy, he's believed, once he's established that he has credibility, that by performing a miracle or predicting a future event, he gets credibility as a prophet.
[00:16:14] Now, if he doesn't. If he, uh, if he tries to predict something and it does not come true. So then the Parsha tells us how we deal with him. He's put to death as a false prophet, and that's that.
[00:16:27] It's interesting to note as well that the Torah also delineates that prophecy has certain Rules to it, number one is it has to originate from the land of Israel.
[00:16:37] And number two is it's only from the Jewish people.
[00:16:41] And actually even a prophet, once he, you know, predicts something or, uh, he does something miraculous, so after that, like I mentioned before, he doesn't have to prove himself. But if at any point a navi, a prophet, makes a prediction and it does not come true, so then he is a false prophet. So the point is that the prophecy, the miracle, was only, you know, necessary to prove his legitimacy. But if at any point a navi predicted something that did not happen so he could be put to death. And actually, during the destruction or before the destruction of the second temple, there was Yirmia. Jeremiah was the true prophet, and he was warning the nation of the impending catastrophe, of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. But Chanaan Ben Azor, who was previously recognized as a prophet, was prophesizing as he had become corrupted, he was prophesizing that there would be salvation and triumph and nothing bad would happen.
[00:17:50] But what happened was that Yirmio Jeremiah was correct and Chanaan was corrupted and his prophecy was not true. So in a situation like that, even though he's previously been recognized as a true prophet, he made a prediction that did not happen and became a false prophet. Now, the question really that needs to be asked right now at this point is, is really what's the point of prophecy?
[00:18:19] Is it a focus forward? Is it a focus into the future?
[00:18:23] Or is there something a little bit different about it? You know, the Torah view on prophecy? So to explain this, I saw Rabbi Hirsch. He brings down very beautifully that the way that Judaism views its prophets is not in the sense of miracle workers and foretelling the future.
[00:18:47] You know, I think that's maybe to make a separation.
[00:18:50] The quote, unquote, non Jewish prophets of other religions rely heavily on the miracles and, you know, that's. And the future telling. But in Judaism, we don't focus on that so much. Sure. We need that to attain that there, that they're true prophets and not frauds. But the actual prophecies and the reasons why they are recorded is not necessarily for the miracles, but rather for the message that the prophets are bringing to the people of Israel, to the Jewish people.
[00:19:23] And the idea that Rabbi Hirsch brings down is that the calling of the prophets are that they are the instruments of Hashem, the instruments of God to bring his word to his people, to help them understand their situation and their expectations for the future, and to encourage them to do good and to warn them against the challenges and the evils that they may face, to inspire them and to give them courage and faithfulness.
[00:19:53] And really, it's a calling.
[00:19:55] The prophecies, if you look at the prophets, the writings, you'll see that the prophecies that were recorded for, you know, for generations, for history, are words that are really giving strength to the Jewish nation. It's not miraculous, uh, things that are happening, right? The Talmud relates to us that the Jewish people had thousands of prophets, but only a limited, very limited amount of them were actually recorded. And their prophecies were recorded in the 24 books, right? You have the five books of Moshe, and then you have the Neviim, the books of the prophets, and then the books of the writings, but only a very limited amount that had relevance for generations were written down. And what was written down, if you look through it, you know, there's only very rare instances of miracles.
[00:20:49] You know, the miracles that they did being, you know, brought down and written. Because that's not the point of the prophets. The point of the prophets is to give clarity and to give to the Jewish nation at that time and to give, not just for that time, but for generations, to give us clarity going forward, to give us strength, to give us courage, to give us a focus.
[00:21:12] And I think this is a very important idea because if it takes us back to this whole concept of tamem tiya im hashem elokeha, right?
[00:21:22] The non Jewish nations of the world, there's such a heavy focus on prophets and miracles and future telling because it's this world of randomness. You don't have the tools and the instruments, and maybe what it takes to go forward, to have that clarity, maybe they don't have that clarity, but the Jewish people, we, we have the Torah, we have a mission, we have the Mitzvos. We know exactly what we need to do to be successful. It lays it out in the Torah, what we're supposed to do, what will happen when we do those good things. And God forbid, if we don't do what we're supposed to do, what will happen. And we've seen it in our history that it's happened like that, right? We've seen it for good, and unfortunately, we've seen it for bad. And I think this idea, um, maybe just helps us get a little bit of knowledge to understand what, you know, maybe helps us understand what is a true prophet, what is the point of prophecy. It's not necessarily, it's not necessarily for us, for the miracles, right? That was already that was already in the Torah. Right? And it's needed maybe just to, uh, ascertain who's true. But the.
[00:22:34] Once a prophet is accepted as true, the prophecies which are related to us are just to give us clarity in our situation on where we are and where we will be in the future.
[00:22:47] And I think this is a very powerful idea we see from this week's parsha, which maybe I think can help us live our daily lives.
[00:22:55] Because when we look, we live in the present, we live right now.
[00:23:01] You know, sure, we plan for the future, but we, we have to recognize that the situations that we're in and the tools that we have, the people that we're surrounded with, that's the tools which God has given us to reach our potentials.
[00:23:17] We don't have to think about what's going to be in the future. Maybe we get nervous, we don't need to think about that too much. Maybe we do need to take some precautions. But to go and to do all these heejeebee gees into who knows what, we don't have to worry about that. We have to live right now and we have to tamem tiya im hashem elokeh. Serve God with wholeheartedness. To have that pitachon, to have that trust in God. We have the tools, we know the mission, we have the goals. We just got to go ahead and do it. I think that is a very powerful idea from this week's parsha, in contrast to other nations of the world, to what goes on, because there's a difference here. We need to take the messages, the ideas, the principles that we have and apply it to our situation. No matter where we are, no matter when it is, we just, we have what it takes. We have the tools. We just got to go do it. And with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me
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