A Sage is Greater than a Prophet In Shoftim, Moses speaks about the great institutions of Judaism; courts, judges, officers, Kings, Priests, Levites and Prophets. In the case of the Prophet, Moses says in the name of God: I will raise up a Prophet for them from among their own people, like yourself. I will […]
The Ecological Imperative In the course of setting out the laws of war, the Torah adds a seemingly minor detail that became the basis of a much wider field of human responsibility, and is of major consequence today. The passage concerns a military campaign that involves laying siege to a city: When you lay siege […]
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 […]
The Consent of the Governed The contribution of Tanakh, 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 […]
The Greatness of Humility At a dinner to celebrate the work of a communal leader, the guest speaker paid tribute to his many qualities, his dedication, hard work and foresight. As he sat down the leader leaned over and said, “You forgot to mention one thing.” “What was that?” asked the speaker. The leader replied, […]
Environmental Responsibility Some commands in the Torah were understood so narrowly by the sages that they were rendered almost inapplicable. One example is the ir ha-nidachat, the city led astray into idolatry, about which the Torah states that “you must kill all the inhabitants of the city by the sword.” (Deut. 13:16) Another is the ben sorer […]
Learning and Leadership The parsha of Shoftim is the classic source of the three types of leadership in Judaism, called by the sages the “three crowns” of priesthood, kingship and Torah.[1] This is the first statement in history of the principle, set out in the eighteenth century by Montesquieu in ‘L’Esprit des Lois’, and later made fundamental […]
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 […]
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 […]
Power from the Outside or Self-Restraint from Within This summer, we’ve seen riots on the streets of London and Manchester on the one hand, Tripoli on the other. On the face of it there was nothing in common between them. In London the rioters were holding rocks. In Tripoli they were holding machine guns. In […]
