Posts Tagged: Shoftim
Lessons From the Torah and Trump: We Must and Should Respect the Judiciary
In January of 49 BCE, Julius Caesar, then the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine Gaul, and Illyricum, boldly led the 13th Legion -- comprising approximately...
Parshat Shoftim: Peace and Justice Must Prevail
It is unlikely that the name Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Mendel HaCohen Singer will mean anything to you. His rabbinic career principally spanned the early decades...
A Sage Is Greater Than a Prophet
In parshat Shoftim, Moses speaks about the great institutions of Judaism: courts, judges, officers, Kings, Priests, Levites, and Prophets. In the case of the Prophet,...
The Torah and the Ecological Imperative
In the course of setting out the laws of war, the Torah adds a seemingly minor detail that became the basis of a much wider...
Parshat Shoftim: To Lead Is to Serve
Parshat Shoftim talks about monarchy: “When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and...
The Consent of the Governed
The contribution of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) to political thought is fundamental, but not well known. In this article, I want to look at the institution...
Judaism’s Environmental Responsibility
Some commands in the Torah were understood so narrowly by the sages that they were rendered almost inapplicable. One example is the ir ha-nidachat, the city...
Reading and Writing Separate the Statesmen From the Politicians
The parsha of Shoftim is the classic source of the three types of leadership in Judaism, which the sages called the "three crowns:" priesthood, kingship, and...
Testing Prophecy
In his enumeration of the various leadership roles within the nation that would take shape after his death, Moses mentions not only the priest/judge and...
