Parashat Shoftim
4 Elul 5777 / 25-26 August 2017
Torah: Deuteronomy 16:18 - 21:9
Haftarah: Isaiah 51:12 - 52:12 (Fourth Haftarah of Consolation)
Rosh HaShanah is four weeks from now! Please submit your Membership/High Holy Day ticket forms ASAP! And check your mail for our High Holy Day bulletin.
We are looking for volunteers for the High Holy Days: chant Torah and Haftarah, daven, lead English readings, and, have aliyot and other Torah/bimah honors. Contact Rabbi Flom or Susan Burke by e-mail for details and to sign up!
We have just entered the month of Elul, the final run-up to Rosh Hashanah. Jewish tradition teaches that in Elul, we are to engage in “cheshbon hanefesh”, literally “an accounting of the soul” -self-evaluation. As I do every year, I have prepared a Cheshbon HaNefesh worksheet to prepare you for the High Holy Days. For this year’s edition, see: http://rav-rich.blogspot.com/2017/08/cheshbon-hanefesh-worksheet.html
This d’var torah is offered in memory of my sister-in-law, Janis Kronzek, whose yahrzeit falls this coming Tuesday, Elul 7. Y’hi zikhrah barukh – her memory is a blessing.
Please feel free to pass this on to a friend, and please cite the source.
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THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
"Thus (the king) will not act haughtily to his fellows or deviate to the right or to the left from the commandment ..." Deuteronomy 17:20
In the verses preceding the above, the king is instructed to always have a personally written copy of the Torah at his side and to study it all his life. It is to serve as a constant guide to him, to keep him from straying off the path that is commanded in the opening verses of this parashah ("Justice, justice you shall pursue" - 16:20 - found at the entrance to the US Supreme Court)
The past few years have seen an increasing coarseness and shrillness in our “civil” discourse. Whether discussing political or economic issues, matters of war and peace, local or international concerns, we seem to be losing our way in the manner in which we treat each other. “Respect” is merely a word. Those in power, those who seek power, and those who support them, at any level of society, more and more often treat those with whom they disagree as the enemy of all that is right and good. Extreme rhetoric begets extreme positions beget extreme conduct - it’s a dangerous path.
It is worth remembering that the Torah has a different approach to how rulers ought to exercise their authority. Staying between the lines of right and left, traveling down the middle of the lane - that is the way to go. What happens when a driver goes too far to the right or to the left? A wreck!
The staking out of extreme positions to placate a "base" is the exact opposite of what the Torah instructs. Look at the road - the lanes are wide - the boundary lines at the edges are narrow. This is why Rambam teaches in Hilchot De'ot (Laws of Character Traits) 1:3 - "The two extremes of each trait, which are distant from each other, do not make a proper path. It is improper for a man to follow them or to teach them to himself." This applies not only to our rulers, but to each and every one of us!
Extreme moderation - that is the rule of the road.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Richard A. Flom
Blogging at: http://rav-rich.blogspot.com/
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Twitter: @DrahcirMolf
"שתיקה כהודאה דמיא"
"Silence in the face of wrongdoing is consent.”
BT Yevamot 87b
