Dvar Torah on Parshat Shoftim

One of the major points around which many of the current disagreements in the Jewish world seem to revolve is the question of the authenticity, or lack thereof, of a given idea or value. Is the value or concern being championed really a Jewish one? Is egalitarianism “Jewish”? Is Feminism? Democracy? Liberalism? Conservatism? Many communal leaders seem to feel that by labeling a principal or idea as non-Jewish in origin they have succeeded in excluding that idea from what can be acceptable to the halacha or the tradition, and thereby won their argument. This week’s parsha would seem to indicate that this approach is profoundly incorrect and, in fact, really not Jewish at all.

Parshat Shoftim contains a lot of material about how to run the Jewish state: laws about judges and courts, policemen, Priests and Rabbis, and, of course, the king. Famously, Judaism has a tricky relationship with the notion of a king. When the Jewish people ask the prophet Samuel to anoint someone as their ruler, after many years of having been led by judges, priests, and prophets, Samuel balks, and only when God insists that he listen to the people’s request does he agree. The source for this hesitancy towards the notion of a monarchy is in our parsha, which seems to leave the question of whether or not we should have a monarch as our leader up to us: “When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives to you and take possession of it, and dwell in it, and you say: I will place upon myself a king, like all the nations around me. Place, you shall place a king over you…(Devarim, 17, 14-15). Clearly, only once the people ask for a king does it become a mitzvah to appoint one, and the rules of who may be appointed, and how the king must behave, kick in. These laws, which basically limit him to a lifestyle which is quite un-regal – not too much silver or gold, not too many wives or horses, and he has to schlep a sefer Torah around with him at all times – would seem to indicate that not only does the Torah clearly leave us the option of never asking for one, it also allows for a king only if he is not really much of a king, limited by law to a reasonable amount of wealth and power. Obviously, the Torah is not fully sold on the idea of monarchy but, rather, seems to see it as a problematic option.

The Netziv, Rav Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (Belarus, 1816 - 1893), understands the verses as above, and elaborates further on how the Torah feels towards monarchy and other forms of government. He says that the commandment to appoint a king is contingent on the will of the people; it is up to them to decide if they prefer a monarchy or to have their country run “according to the will of the people and their elected officials” – a democracy. The Netziv goes on to say that the people of Israel are allowed to make the decision to not have a king, and choose democracy instead, if they do not “agree to suffer the yoke of a king, due to what they see in the countries around them, who have an arrangement which is more correct.” The Torah allows us this latitude because “the way a country is run changes if it is run as a monarchy or a democracy, and some countries can not stand the notion of a king, and some countries, without a king, will be like a ship without a captain.”

Beyond the fact that the Netziv sees democracy as the Torah’s clearly implied option to monarchy, his statement about the nation of Israel looking around them, at the other nations, and learning from them what system of government is best, clearly indicates that when the Torah describes the Jews as saying “I will place upon myself a king, like all the nations around me”, we are not meant to see this imitation of other nations as a bad or inauthentic thing. On the contrary, the Netziv is telling us that looking around and comparing forms of government is an essential part of the process, a crucial part of the mitzvah – we are meant to study other forms of government and decide which is right for us. We are meant to look at what the “goyim” – other nations - are thinking and doing about running their countries and societies and then decide on the right path for the Jewish people.

One could not ask for a clearer refutation of the notion that Jewish ideas are to be found only by looking inward, and backward, at what the Torah and the Rabbis tell us. The Torah itself asks us to learn from the wisdom and experience of other nations and act on what we learn, in terms of one of the most basic and important decisions we can possibly make: what system of government is best for the optimal running of a Jewish state. We are also asked to be sensitive to subjective assessments of what will and will not work best. As the Netziv says, the decision to go with a monarchy or with democracy is based on what the people feel will work best for them, what, given their specific situation and circumstances, makes the most sense at the time.

Contrary to the notion, popular in certain Orthodox circles, that the Torah is an objective and independent legal, moral, and ethical system, which is meant to be in constant and essential opposition to other, non-Jewish systems, and certainly does not rely on them, we see here that we, as Jews, are meant to assess and integrate what other nations are doing, in order to come to the optimal solutions for ourselves. The Torah is meant to be open to good ideas, the experiences of others, and the sensibilities of groups and individuals, both Jewish and non-Jewish; this is part and parcel of making correct halachic decisions.

So, the next time some Rabbi or self-appointed “gadol” tells you that an idea is unacceptable, against tradition, or dangerous because it is not Jewish, reflects western values, or comes from non-Torah sources, tell him that it is the Torah that tells us to use non-Jewish ideas, theories, and experiences to help us figure out how to run our lives. If he doesn’t listen, you can send him to me.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix