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Weekly Davar - Shoftim

Shoftim - Values, not just laws
Dueteronomy 16:18 – 21:9

GOOD MORNING!! I hope that if you were on holiday it was restful and enjoyable. We have been busy as my wife and I were blessed, thank God, with our 8th child on Wednesday, a beautiful little boy. Children are very, very hard work – but the blessing that they bring to our lives is worth every drop of sweat and every ounce of effort. I also find that after about 4, the odd one or two extra isn’t that much harder! For those of you in London, please pencil in Wednesday 7th September as a likely day for a bris (circumcision). All will be welcome and we will name the baby at the ceremony. I will send out an update once the date is confirmed.

Torah Portion

The portion this week contains laws relating to the governing of a state. It begins with the appointment and conduct of judges. Judges must be righteous men, preferably wealthy so that they are immune to bribes. The portion finishes with the laws of a king. He must not have too many wives – 18 is the maximum!!! He must not amass too much money for himself. He may not have too big a standing army – large enough to defend the country, but no more. The expansion of the ‘Jewish Empire’ is through ideas, not armies. Many great Empires have come and gone. The ‘Jewish Empire’ – that of the values of ethical Monotheism – is still going strong, over 3000 years from its inception.

Davar Torah
Values, not just laws

This portion talks of judges that the Jewish People were to appoint. Two primary purposes are mapped out – firstly, to define and enforce Jewish civil and criminal law and secondly to define and disseminate the values which were to underpin Jewish society.
 
Whilst the former is well catered to in Western countries today, the latter function does not exist in any formalized way and the riots we recently experienced in the UK are a symptom of this lacking.
 
When laws are underpinned by values, you give people reason to keep them even when they have opportunities not to do so. But when laws are simply imposed by a government, as soon as the opportunity arises to contravene them for personal benefit, people will be sorely tempted to do so.
 
So where are we teaching values today?
 
School? I remember learning Maths, English, even Latin and Ancient Greek in school, but I don’t recall a single discussion on values – in 12 years of education. Schools teach people skills for the material, but not the spiritual world. (I'm happy to see that ‘citizenship’ is part of our National Curriculum, but the amount of teenagers in the riots indicates that something not working.)
 
University? According to Cambridge University’s website, you can do a degree in Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic, but there is no degree in Ethics, Morals or Values. There is always the odd course or two but they are usually academic discussions, not genuine attempts to imbue a sense of moral standards in those participating.
 
Synagogues, churches and mosques? I can only speak for Judaism on this one, but I suspect other religions are similar. Firstly, there is strong tendency to focus on form over content and secondly, in general, those most likely to benefit from the values of a religion are those least likely to turn up.
 
In truth, there is only one place to learn values and that is in a home. All of the aforementioned institutions must provide great support to homes, but the bottom line is that solid families with solid values will normally create children with a strong moral sense. And we don’t have such solid families anymore, so what do we expect? Without this foundation, the moral fibre of our communities is at risk.
 
But more is required. Yes, each of us who has a home has a responsibility to create an environment in which emotionally healthy and morally strong children will develop, but, as I said, homes require support – and that support is the role of the Judges of this week’s portion. In our day and age, this is the job of governments – to set a moral agenda and to attend to it. Government cannot satisfy itself with policing riots and sending the offenders to prison. It must look at why they happen in the first place and set into motion a plan that will prevent people rioting in the first place – and the solution is not financial, it is educational. In the UK, at least, our government has been talking about this for a long time. But there has been a significant gap between talking and doing. If this gap is not bridged, they might as well start expanding the police force right now.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt

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