A D’var Torah by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
Amazing how an age-old Torah portion can apply so well to our contemporary world! Shoftim (which means “magistrates”) is a “Law and Order” portion in the best sense: the first thing the biblical Israelites are obliged to do in setting up their new society is to appoint magistrates and officials for all their tribes. At the same time, these officials are mandated to govern with justice. Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you (16:20)
But first the officials have to organize themselves. If the people want to appoint a king because all the neighboring people have kings, they are free – but not obligated — to do so. While this king will serve as what we moderns call the “Executive Branch”, his power will not be absolute. Not by a longshot. Government will have three “crowns”: the Executive Branch, the Judiciary, and the Prophets (the religious branch, a congress of social and moral critics). Does this sound familiar? Yes, following the biblical pattern, the U.S. government is three-branched as well. Each branch serves as a check upon the other in order to have a balanced system.
Furthermore, the character of the king, the head of this government in biblical times, is defined at length. He must not be concerned with acquiring material possessions for himself (no traveling to Egypt to get the best horses!) nor acquire many wives “lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess” (17::17). This king will not indulge in licentious behavior. Instead, he must keep a copy of the Torah beside him and study it daily in order to further develop and guide his moral and ethical sensibilities. With an awareness of the limits of his power under God, the king of Israel must be humble in nature.
This portrait of a Chief Executive may be idealistic (with his taste for many wives and possessions, King Solomon didn’t manage to fulfill these requirements – and he taxed the people too heavily), but It’s certainly a recipe for good government.
The people, too, are advised to comport themselves appropriately and not “imitate the abhorrent practices” of the surrounding nations. (18:9).
Furthermore, the judiciary must temper justice with compassion and with fairness towards both rich and poor. Status in society will not affect the outcome. This was a big statement for the Torah to make. Even though “justice for all” is a precept of American society as well, unfortunately status and riches still affect both treatment by law enforcement and verdicts rendered today: Can someone charged with an offence afford a good lawyer, or is that person relegated to the legal services of an overburdened public defender? Does race, color, and ingrained prejudice affect the verdict (and perhaps the severity of the charge)? If so, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
As for the priests, the third branch, they are freed from worrying about material possessions (which the populace will look after). Neither can they own land; rather, “the Lord is their portion (18:2). The people, too, are advised to comport themselves appropriately and not “imitate the abhorrent practices” of the surrounding nations. (18:9).
Hopefully, there will be peace – that is always the goal — but there is a sober assessment of how to comport oneself in the event of war. “Why do the prescriptions concerning warfare follow the rules of justice in the preceding chapter?” asks the medieval scholar, Rashi. “To teach that Israel will succeed in war only if it practices justice.” *
What I find so touching in this parasha are the words that the priests must say to the soldiers before every battle, an address still practiced in Israel today. Soldiers are not simply pawns in a chess game for the purposes of the State; they are human beings entitled to a taste of life before being sent, perhaps to face death, to protect their country. In Shoftim, first the priests are to counsel the troops not to fear because God will be with them, and then they are to address their very human concerns:
“Is there anyone who has built a new house but has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another dedicate it. Is there anyone who has planted a vineyard but has never harvested it? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another harvest it. Is there anyone who has paid the bride price for a wife, but who has not yet married her? Let him go back to his home, lest he die in battle and another marry her (20:5-9)” **
Then the biblical priests turn to another concern: fear in the ranks, which is treated with compassion: “Is there anyone afraid and disheartened? Let him go back to his home, lest the courage of his comrades flag like his” (20:8). Only after these issues are addressed, do the military commanders encourage their troops to defend their new land.
Even after all this preparatory talk, there is an essential point to be made. Before engaging in battle, the commanders are obliged to offer the alternative of peace to their adversaries. They may launch an attack only if peaceful relations have been refused.
With the prospect of several thousand additional U.S. troops – our sons and daughters — soon to be called up to serve in Afghanistan, these biblical precepts are important to understand and remember. Situations change, wars and their devastating consequences come and go in history, but human nature is constant.
*Quoted by Rabbi Gunther Plaut in “Gleanings,” The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition (New York: Union for Reform Judaism) 1314.
**With these concerns in mind, in the modern Israeli army, soldiers who have not yet had children, are encouraged to consign their frozen semen to a sperm bank.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
If there is anything positive to emerge from the current, gut-wrenching television coverage of Nazi flags and slogans, swastikas and Heil Hitler salutes, torch parades with uncovered faces, and violence in the streets of America, perhaps it is this: that our millennial generation will begin to understand how manipulated hatred — grounded in fear, racism, and bigotry — can spread like a cancer through an unsuspecting population. Maybe they will understand why there must be a State of Israel.
Fortunately, there are gentler ways to teach about the Holocaust and its ramifications, as “Schindler’s List “and many other fine films have demonstrated – so that hopefully it will never happen again. Learning about the history of that time from the lips of those who experienced it is irreplaceable, of course, but there are fewer survivors now every year.
One such survivor – in that he escaped Germany on the cusp of the Holocaust – was the esteemed, late Rabbi Gunther Plaut. More than four decades after World War II, I met him in Toronto, Canada, where he had been the longtime rabbi, soon to become Rabbi Emeritus, of the highly regarded Holy Blossom Temple.* During the 15 years I lived in that city, I was a member there. I consider myself blessed to have attended Rabbi Plaut’s Torah Study classes each week..
It was the late 1980s, and I was deeply honored when he asked me to direct a reading of his one-act play about the Holocaust. Although he had written it long ago, he had kept it to himself for many years. Now he wanted to open his experience as a young man in Nazi Germany to his congregation.
The play was called “The Train.” It portrayed the painful, dislocated feelings of a new Doctor of Laws graduate from the University of Berlin in 1934, forced to leave his native Germany after the restrictive Nuremberg Laws (first introduced on September 15, 1935 but not enforced until after the 1936 Olympics in Berlin) prevented him from practicing law. Even worse, Jews were stripped of their citizenship.**
The young lawyer represented in the play was, of course, our esteemed rabbi, Gunther Plaut. The conflicted feelings expressed were his own as he left family, friends, his now denied means of making a living, and the country he once loved for America. Luckier than most, he had gained sponsorship to rabbinic studies in the U.S. There he would study Jewish law.
As the war came to a close in 1945, Rabbi Gunther Plaut would be among the army chaplains who participated in liberating the concentration camps, the death camps, in Europe. It was an experience he would never forget. And he would go on to become a great rabbi, one of the pioneers of the Reform movement in Canada and regarded internationally as a highly erudite author. His landmark book, The Torah: A Modern Commentary, is still widely used today.
When we mounted Rabbi Plaut’s play, he was truly thrilled to be cast as the Narrator (he had thrown out a few hints that he’d like to do it!), whose commentary was a hallmark of the play. Thespian members of the congregation filled the other roles, and one of the congregational members was a talented harpist who played in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. When the soft cadences of her harp accompanied his narrations, shivers went up and down my spine. The play was extremely moving for the audience. For Rabbi Plaut, I think it was cathartic to have the feelings of his younger self, buried for so many years, enacted on the stage – and shared with the receptive, loving members of his congregation. The audience – the auditorium was packed — watched the performance with tears in their eyes and gave it a standing ovation when it ended.
When he retired, the Law Society of Ontario awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree, a thoughtful and sensitive replacement for the degree he was forbidden to use as a young man in Nazi Germany.***
The Holy Blossoms refer to the tender young shoots, the students who study Torah.
** Prior to the passing of the antisemitic Nuremberg Laws, The Law for Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which passed on April 7, 1933, excluded non-Aryans from the legal profession and civil service. The Nuremberg Laws two years later codified the racial theories and ideology of the Nazi party. The first two laws passed in 1935 were the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor. Jews (defined racially rather than religiously) were stripped of their citizenship, and the new laws had a devastating economic impact on the Jewish community as well.
*** The following is a narration from the dramatized The March of Times radio series about the Munich Crisis, Sept. 16, 1938:
NARRATOR: “Tonight, hour after hour, by short-wave wireless through the ether and along the cables undersea, the news piles up from the capitals of Europe…world-shaking, momentous news that sends Britain’s grave Prime Minister flying to Adolph Hitler and President Roosevelt hurrying back to Washington…the grim, portentous news that Sudeten Germans are in armed revolt, and behind every dispatch the mounting fear that the field-gray German regiments, mobilized and ready, may march into Czechoslovakia. All this week, day after day, and every hour of each day, the news poured in…and tomorrow and all next week, news will come from London, from Paris, from Prague, from Berlin. And as the headlines record each flying fact and rumor, United States citizens watch and wait and try to understand” (“The March of Time: Munich Crisis, Sept. 16, 1938,” Generic Radio Workshop Script Library (http://www.genradio.com/show.php?id=0079c4704cd5da4).
“How do you know that your blood is redder than his, perhaps his blood is redder than yours?”
(Rava in Sanhedrin 74a, Talmud)
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
I didn’t know yet that the Talmud teaches each and every life has value. I learned it by example when I was eleven years old from an animal, from my pet cat, Buttons. She was a beautiful Persian cat with piercing green eyes and fur so glossy and black it seemed to have purple highlights. Naturally she attracted the attention of some of the neighborhood Toms, and soon we noticed that Buttons seemed heavier around her middle.
Then one evening as I was taking a bath, I heard sounds behind the tile bathroom walls, faint sounds. Mice? No, they seemed to be mewing sounds…behind the wall. Wrapping my towel around me, I rushed to the cupboard just outside our bathroom. Sure enough, the cover to the opening of the wide pipe that ran behind the bathroom wall had been chewed off. I put my ear to the pipe and listened. Yes, those sounds were alive, and, oh, the heated air was warm in there.
With eleven-year-old valor, I reached my hand in as far as I could and touched…wet fur. That is how I lifted out, first one, then two little kittens. But I could still hear a faint mewing. Stretching my arm to the limit, I reached in once more and lifted out a third kitten. Jubilant, I carried them all downstairs to our warm kitchen and settled them comfortably in a basket lined with soft towels. My little sister instantly named them Spic, Span, and Rainbow. Spic was white, Span was black, and Rainbow was multi-colored.
I thought Buttons would be so pleased to see her kittens safe and sound in the basket. But she was not pleased. No, she was frantic as she touched each of them on the nose and paused. And then again, she counted noses. Then she rushed up the stairs to the bathroom closet and squeezed into the warm pipe. She soon emerged with one kitten (Blondie, we called her because she was a strawberry-blonde), and then with another (Tawny, the color of café au lait). She carried them down one by one to the kitchen basket, and when all five of them were settled, she counted their noses with her own nose. ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR-FIVE. And then again to make sure. That’s how she took her own census. I didn’t know that cats could count, but they do if it concerns their own children. Finally, she settled contentedly into the basket with her furry kittens – like the biblical Joseph’s coat, a magnificent blend of many colors.
That’s how I learned from one of God’s small creatures – a black cat with diverse children, each of whom she loved — that every life counts. As the Torah teaches, and poets have always known, each star, each grain of sand, each human life matters. Everywhere.
And for the precious gift of our lives, we owe it to God and to ourselves to make every minute, every hour count. To use it well for ourselves in the time that we have – something we especially appreciate as we grow older — and to use it well for the rest of the lives that have been created, for humanity and for all of God’s creatures.
D’var Torah by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
From what they see on the riverbank, they can also glimpse what the future might hold.
The central theme of this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, which is Hebrew for “See,” is God’s gift to us: choice. In today’s political climate, freedom of choice is something we must be vigilant to safeguard. It was equally true in the Torah. This is the choice Moses presents in this parashah as he quotes God saying, “See, I have placed before you blessing and curse. Re’eh, anochi noten lifneichem hayom bracha oo klalah.”* These are the opening lines of the portion. The implication is for the Israelites to choose between alternative futures.
In the parasha itself, the word, “Re’eh,” is written in the imperative. But it means more than a literal command to “See! Look!” in the everyday, practical sense. It also implies that – as the Israelites stand on the heights of Moab, looking out over the Jordan River they will soon cross to take possession of the land of Canaan – they should believe the evidence of their own eyes.
They should also perceive much more than that. From what they see on the riverbank, they can also draw insight, understanding, a glimpse of what the future might hold. Re’eh is about deciding how you’re going to live and taking action to make that way of life possible. It is similar to another injunction later in Deuteronomy 30:15: “Re’eh, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity.”
So what do the Israelites see? Visualize twin mountain peaks, Mount Gerizim in the south and Mount Ebal in the north, both in the same Ephraim mountain range. In those early biblical days, there was, of course, no television, no social media, no “You Tube’ to present a panoramic view to a large multitude; so instead the Torah presents the textual image of these very real mountains as symbols. Mount Gerizim is located near the biblical Shechem (Nablus in modern times), and it is lush, covered with greenery and fruits, a green zone one might say. The other peak, Mount Ebal, is bleak, steep, and arid. Nothing grows there. The Israelites are instructed to pronounce blessings on green Mount Gerizim and the reverse on bleak Mount Ebal. Traditionally Mount Ebal represents strict justice, severity. How’s that for symbolism? If you were an Israelite overlooking the Jordan River, which route would you choose?
However, the choice is not so easy. Sure, everyone would like to live in the green zone. But making the choice to live there involves choosing a way of life – permanently, for all your generations. The land across the river Jordan is to be sacred, a holy land, and the people who choose to live there, to opt for green Mount Gerizim, must choose to be a holy people, a nation of priests, in fact. That’s the catch. God is to be their only God, and they will have to live by special moral and ethical rules. We have already heard about most of these rules in Leviticus, but of course, Deuteronomy is a recap, a summary of the previous books of the Torah, a looking back. The rules are reiterated here before the people actually move into the land and make it their own. A good deal of what is mentioned anticipates what will actually happen in future years.
Reality check: The land of Canaan is not empty. It is already occupied by pagans who worship other gods and sacrifice their own children by burning them as offerings to their gods. They have disgusting sexual practices, abominable health habits, they treat animals cruelly. And ever since the Golden Calf incident, God is particularly touchy on this issue of idolatry. There are still Israelites who tuck little idols into the corners of their tents. It remained an issue even in later years.
Get rid of the pagans, God commands in the Torah. The land must be purified. Tear down their altars. Destroy their towns. Execute them. There is only one God of Israel.
To our modern ears, this sounds horrific, barbaric. It is important to remember that historically this did not happen. Whole towns were not destroyed because people who worshipped pagan gods lived there. In this parasha, God is using hyperbole intended to warn the Israelites: Evil practices and the people who practice them are to be routed out. The Israelites are exhorted not to be lured by the heathen practices of the Canaanites, nor to be seduced by false prophets who claim to perform supernatural acts, not even by their own relatives who may worship idols. The death penalty is prescribed by anyone who tries to entice others to idolatry.
And if anyone doubts that Jerusalem – “the site that the Lord will choose” – was intended to be a holy city for a holy people, they should read this Torah portion — as well as the haftarah in Isaiah describing the beauty of a Jerusalem set in precious stones, and assuring that the city will be restored to her former glory, and that peace will prevail. All ritual sacrifices would henceforth take place only in Jerusalem, that is, the centralization of ritual sacrifices that actually took place in the reigns of King Hezekiah and, especially, King Josiah, several centuries later. God is giving the Israelites a choice to transform society, to move forward with purpose.
So, with the Israelites still looking across the Jordan River at the land beyond, God says, “If you choose to follow my rules, you will be my chosen people.’’ To be one of these treasured people means that you will take upon yourselves the responsibility to live morally and make ethical choices. It’s not always easy. You can choose or not choose. The hardest part is making the decision. You can listen to what wise people say. But, in the end, it’s up to you.
* “Consequences “(klalah), a word adopted from neo-Syrian vassal treaties, is likely a better English translation for curse.
By Rabbi Corinne Copnick
All my grandchildren are teenagers now, learning to make their own near-adult decisions. One is already away at college; another is thoughtfully filling out her college applications; a third is entering high school. Time for choices.
When I moved into my own teenage zone so many years ago, my mother explained that I was old enough to learn how to make decisions on my own. “You make two columns,” she explained in her high-pitched, school-marm’s voice (in her salad days, my mother had been a school teacher with 58 immigrant children in her fifth grade classroom. In those old depression days, jobs were scarce for new graduates without experience, so my spunky mother took a job in a rural school where she taught eight grades in one room. After that, she was able to get a position in an overcrowded city school. So she certainly felt qualified to teach her budding daughter how to make an important decision).
“You head one column with the word ‘PRO,’” she continued. “That’s the column for all the reasons you should something.” I dutifully wrote “PRO” at the top of the first column.
“And then you put ‘CON’ at the top of the second column. That’s where you put all the reasons why you shouldn’t do something.” Respectfully acceding to her instructions, I wrote “CON” at the top of the designated column.
“What do I do now?” I asked.
“You think,” she replied. “You think and think.”
Immediately I started thinking, but I wasn’t sure what I was thinking about.
“Now,” she instructed, “you start writing down all the reasons why you want to do something.”
“What is it I want to do?” I asked.
“Think of something,” she replied. “Something important.”
“Okay,” I replied. I want to play hooky from school and just laze around. For a week. I’m tired of studying.”
“Hmmm,” she said. “Now put all the reasons why that would be a good idea in the PRO column.”
So I did. Only one reason to a line. That was the rule. It was a good thing I had ruled paper. I ended up with 25 PRO reasons.
“Next,” she said. “It’s time for the CONS. Write down all the reasons why you shouldn’t play hooky in the second column.”
I was having a hard time filling up the CON column with as many reasons as the PRO column, but my mother threw in a dozen or so suggestions because you should try to have a reasonably equal number. What you have to do then is balance them. She didn’t mean balance them on a scale. It was more the way a juggler juggles balls. Only you have to juggle them in your mind. Until you make a decision.
I had a sneaking suspicion the CON column made a lot more sense. But I got tired of juggling and chose the PRO column anyway.
That’s how I learned to make a decision. You balance the PROS and the CONS.
So, from then on, every time I had to make a decision, my mother would say, “Why don’t you PRO/CON it?”
This is a tough one,” I complained. “I have to write an essay for school. About capital punishment.”
“Capital punishment?” she gasped. “You mean, when the judge decides a murderer should be executed?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Whether they should do it or not.”
“Oh,” she offered sympathetically. “I’ll help you.”
So together we wrote out lots of PROS and even more CONS, but at the end, even though my mother juggled and juggled in her mind, she couldn’t decide which column carried more weight.
“I have to choose,” I exclaimed. The essay is due tomorrow.” She threw up her hands in despair. So, all by myself, I chose the PROS.
“That’s impressive,” she said, relieved that she didn’t have to make a choice. “I think you made a good decision.”
But ten minutes after I laid my head on my pillow, she shook me by the shoulder. “Wake up,” she cried. “I think you made a mistake. Big mistake. Maybe you should have chosen the CONS.
So I got up, and being a dutiful daughter, I listened to my mother who, after all, had more life experience than me. I changed the decision to CON.” And went back to bed.
Then, about three o’clock in the morning, I felt something nudging me. Little nudge. Bigger nudge. It was my mother. “I can’t sleep,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking about it all night. It should be PRO.”
“Oh no,” I cried. “I’ll change it in the morning.”
“Noooo,” she protested. “You might change your mind in the morning.”
I smiled at my mother. “I’m learning to make a decision,” I said firmly. “MY decision. I’m going to sleep on it!” And I did.
In the morning, I was sure that I had made the right choice. I won’t tell you what it was. It’s my secret. I will tell you that, after that, whenever I had to make a decision, I always made two column, just as my mother had taught me, and I filled them with PROS and CONS. But I did all the juggling in my mind myself.
And what I decided when I was a teenager – and I have lived a long time since then, and it is still true – what I decided is this: Whichever column you choose, there are consequences, even when it is not a life or death situation. If you choose to go one way, there will be consequences, and if you choose to go another way, there will be consequences. But you can’t keep juggling and juggling and be a grown-up, and, once you choose, you can’t have juggler’s remorse, even if you were a school teacher in your salad days. You have to choose.