Shofetim starts with
18. Judges and officers shall you appoint in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, throughout your tribes; and they shall judge the people with just judgment. 19. You shall not pervert judgment; you shall not respect persons, nor take a bribe; for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous. 20. Justice, only justice shall you pursue, that you may live, and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you. [Deut 16]
A chapter later, we read
14. When you come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall live in it, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me; 15. You shall set him king over you, whom the Lord your God shall choose; one from among your brothers shall you set king over you; you may not set a stranger over you, who is not your brother. [Deut 17:14-15]
Leadership, either by kings, judges or prophets is a big part of this portion. What I mentioned to my friend was an interesting contradiction that occurs for the early prophet Samuel was growing old, while his sons were corrupt judges. .
4. Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel to Ramah, 5. And said to him, Behold, you are old, and your sons walk not in your ways; now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. 6. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. [I Samuel 8:4-5]
Samuel was not happy about all this, though God blames himself for this mess. Indeed it is interesting that it is in the issue of Kings that even god flubs it. God even admits he made a mistake appointing Saul:
11. I regret that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried to the Lord all night. [I Samuel 15:11]
There were warnings in our portion that things could go bad, with specific prohibitions for a monarch in power. They were forbidden from neither increasing the number of horses for themselves, nor sending people to live in Egypt again. Like horses, he should not Have many wives because the foreign beliefs of the wives would destroy his ability to lead[Deut 17:16-17] In I Samuel 8, Samuel, relaying the word of the Lord warns the people that the King will tax the daylights out of you and draft your sons into the army.
Of course the builder of the Temple himself Solomon, broke a lot of this. Solomon had too many wives and a strong taxation of the people in order to pay for the temple and his palace. The result was the unified kingdom only lasted during Solomon’s reign.
In all of this however, there is one mitzvah about Kings that intrigues me more than these others, the one thing a king is supposed to do which still has repercussions in time long after kings were an anachronism for Jews:
18. And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this Torah in a book from that which is before the priests the Levites; 19. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this Torah and these statutes, to do them; [Deut 17:18-19]
The Talmud reads
He shall write in his own name a Sefer Torah. When he goes forth to war he must take it with him. On returning, he brings it back with him. When he sits in judgment it shall be with him, and when he sits down to eat, before him, as it is written: And it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life. [Sanh 21b]
Essentially it became the tradition that this mitzvah of a king was to true not just for kings but for commoners as well. As the Talmud continues, “in his own name” means he must make a fresh copy and not merely take an already written scroll as his scroll. We all are to write our own Torah. But the Talmud also says:
Rabbah b. Bar Hanah said in the name of R. Johanan, It is forbidden to write one letter save from a copy’.
We are not to make this up; we have to follow the laws as written by the letter. In my view, what does all this mean?
It would be nice for every Jew to have the requisite, time, Hebrew skills, and scribal abilities to literally write their own scrolls. Even in the time of Kings, the king did not do the copying, but a scribe did. People would commission to have a scroll made for them. The Talmud does take a dim view however of merely buying the scrolls,
R. Joshua b. Abba again cited R. Giddal who said in the name of Rab, He who buys a scroll of the Law in the market is regarded as one that has seized a precept in the market, but he who writes it, him the Scripture regards as if he had received it at Mount Sinai. [Menh 30a]
The writing even if it is a commission requires an active role of both commissioned and commissioner. I believe here is where we can see the merit in such an act. No matter how the Torah scroll is obtained, it must be a case of active participation and active learning. Passively reading is different than writing. As I sit at this keyboard every week, I am not, like many, simply reading and reporting the text. The experience is the same as when I have tried my hand at the scribal arts. You cannot handwrite something without thinking about what you are writing. In the group setting, Havruot and minyans who replace the rabbi’s sermon with a discussion about the texts do the same thing, but on a even higher level, creating an environment of differing perspectives which enhances the conversation.
Abraham Joshua Heschel in the 1953 gave a scathing attack during a speech to conservative rabbis which half a century later remains true in many congregations:
The modern synagogue suffers from a severe cold. Our congregants preserve a respectful distance between the prayerbook and themselves. They say the words "Forgive us for we have sinned," but of course they are not meant. They say, "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart ." in lofty detachment, in complete anonymity, as if giving an impartial opinion about an irrelevant question.
An air of tranquility, complacency prevails in our synagogues. What can come out of such an atmosphere? The services are prim, the voice is dry, the synagogue is clean and tidy, and the soul of prayer lies in agony. You know no one will scream, no one will cry, the words will be still-born… They have come to regard the rabbi as a master of ceremonies. [MGSA,101-2]
In the passive world of synagogue observance, there is no life to prayer and thus no life to the Mitzvot. Heschel knew prayer through the lens of the Hasidism of his youth in Warsaw. The passionate ideal of active prayer so important to Heschel has found its way into many movements since then, such as Renewal and Reform. Within ourselves we must active look at the mitzvot in order to do them. Passivity leads to a cold of the entire religion.
A king who gives orders and everyone mindlessly follows those orders leads to an unhealthy country. The people are not motivated to do more for the king and country than the orders allow. A king who actively participates in the law and brings his followers into being that active creates a healthy vibrant kingdom. When we rule ourselves we should think of this. How much more so when we rule others?
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