Shoftim: whom to obey

Shoftim: whom to obey

Leadership has many dimensions. The judge (shofet)  applies the law and interprets the words.  The officer (shoter) enforces the ruling in a humane, but sometimes forceful, manner.  The Priest and Levite  are trained  for intercession with the Divine forces that rule over all. The king assures the privileges of membership in the people. The prophet reveals the path of truth. The general allots resources toward victory.  The elder is a bridge to the wisdom of experience.  This week, the Torah demands allegiance to all of these entities. 

The judges and officers are actors in time.  They arbitrate between the law which was written at a given time, and the circumstances as they see them.  The need for judges recognizes that all possibilities cannot be explicitly anticipated.  Extrapolation, and thus interpretation, is always needed.  The judge makes peace with progress. 

The king is introduced as a self imposed  entity.  The people, in their desire to be like other other nations elect for themselves the king.  The instructions  are permeated with ambivalence.  Establishing the monarch is presented as a concession to the will of the people.  וְאָמַרְתָּ֗ אָשִׂ֤ימָה עָלַי֙ מֶ֔לֶךְ כְּכָל־הַגּוֹיִ֖ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר סְבִיבֹתָֽי  you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” It contrasts with the other leaders and officers that are mandated and have elements of Divine intervention. 

The election of the king involves a concession to the general rule of differentiating  from the surrounding nations.  It is a permitted way to be like them, even with the elements of reverence, that border on worship, that accompany it.  

The monarchy defines an aspect of nationhood that is optional for the Israelites: to be like other nations.  Electing a king means investing nationhood with entitlements.  The nation asserts its prerogative to take its share, perhaps to  make its share as big as possible. Jobs, tariffs, immigration rules - are all under the purview of the king. 

Our tradition is that From the day that the Holy Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken away from the prophets and given to fools and children. . ( Bava Bathra 12b)  The parsha tells us that it is not easy  to distinguish prophecy from heresy.  Was it the loss of the national focal point or was it the lack of a physical connection to the Divine that precluded the unification of an innocent ( childlike) and  alternative ( foolish)  worldview into a credible statement ? What about machines? Can they be prophetic?

The parsha ends with the ritual of the beheaded calf, brought to expiate an unsolved  murder.  This collaboration between the elders and the judges ,  וְיָצְא֥וּ זְקֵנֶ֖יךָ וְשֹׁפְטֶ֑יךָ,  and the Kohanim  allows those in charge, those who must be obeyed, to wash their hands of the general violence of their society. They squander a calf that has never pulled a plow  on a barren  piece of land.  They evoke the desecration that is murder in this extraordinary ritual  with a living, not a golden, calf. This passage  comes soon after the prohibition of cutting down a tree to make a rampart for the siege of war.  A prohibition of waste, even in a time of exigency, is followed by waste atop waste in a ritual of regret.  

Is there a force stronger,or more wasteful,  than regret?