Shoftim: credence

Judaism has evolved into a system of belief.  The Torah describes it  as a people one is born into, a tribal entity, with an associated culture and set of rules and beliefs.  The alternative to acceptance of the system was either severe punishment  ( possibly stoning to death) if one stayed inside the system, or exile. 

In my life. if you born into the Remnant of The People, accepting the system, what had become the religion, was optional. Rejection of the (failed) hocus-pocus ( Torah) was the norm.   Those who kept the Commandments were praised for their sacrifice  and laughed at for all they were missing to no purpose. Those who took the questions of Judaism seriously were the modern Luftmenschen, people who derived sustenance from air, people who need no substance. 

We are no longer locked into our people, culture, or belief system  It is all voluntary (whatever that means). But the system has rules, and our Jewish Orthodoxy demands a certain precision in observance. 

This week's parsha discusses the qualifications of reference sources: the judge, the prophet, and  the king. It is only the judge that survives into our day, in the form of the (community) Rabbi. We are told that the judge must shun all bribery, reason  logically ,  not deviate from the tradition (to the extent possible).  He must not be intimidated by the  powerful, nor let his sympathy for the downtrodden overwhelm his fairness.  These qualities describe our Av Beith Din in Seattle.

Prior to the proliferation of communication technology, Jewish practice had a local  character.  This local variation was a substrate for the  evolution of thought and practice.  It resulted in a degree of limited experimentation.  Technology has degraded the local character of custom.  It is replaced by an ever more stringent practice and ArtScroll guidebooks.

In our time, it is only a religious elite that can trace their practice to ancestors.  The rest of us need a source, a guide.  I will stick with the local guide.