Shof’tim: Justice is impartial
Shof’tim: Justice is impartial – Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah (PJ E-Bulletin, 08.25)
As a child, I used to love visiting the almost deserted City of London on a Sunday morning with my family. I recall looking up at the statue of Justice that adorns the dome of the Old Bailey, and marvelling at the image of a powerful-looking woman, her arms outstretched, bearing the Scales of Justice in one hand, and a sword in the other. A middle child, between an older brother and a younger sister, justice and fairness were always major preoccupations. As I gazed at that statue, I felt affirmed in my convictions: Justice meant that my brother shouldn’t get preferential treatment because he was the eldest and a boy, and that my younger sister shouldn’t get away with things that I couldn’t get away with.
Drawing on their personal experience of justice and injustice – in the family, at school, at play – children understand the essence of justice: Equity and impartiality. This week’s Torah portion, the parashah, Shof’tim, opens with the clear and unequivocal statement that judges ‘shall judge the people with just judgement – mishpat-tzedek’ (Deuteronomy 16:18). The passage goes on (16:19-20):
You shall not pervert justice [tzedek]; you shall not respect persons; neither shall you take a gift; for a gift blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous [tzadikim]. / Justice, justice you shall pursue [Tzedek, tzedek tirdof] so that you may live and inherit the land which the Eternal your God is giving to you.
The message in these verses is very clear. Justice is impartial. Further, justice is so important that those responsible for administering justice, must actively pursue it, run after it. The command to pursue justice is underlined by the repetition of the word justice. Further, those who are familiar with Biblical Hebrew grammar will know that since the verb usually comes first in a sentence, the reversal of the order is significant and is intended to emphasise the word ‘justice’. The classical mediaeval biblical commentators noted the repetition. For Abraham ibn Ezra (b. 1092, Spain), the exhortation is directed to the litigants, rather than to the judges; and the repetition of ‘justice’ is intended to convey that they should speak truthfully whether it is to their advantage or their disadvantage. For RaShI – Rabbi Sh’lomoh Yitzchaki (b. 1040, France) – who also sees the verse as directed to the litigants, the command implies that they should go in search of a reliable tribunal to decide their case. For the RaMbaN – Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (b. 1194, Spain), the word ‘justice’ is repeated because it is addressed both to the judge and to the litigant.
So, what do we make of this powerful injunction: ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue’? The mediaeval biblical commentators spoke out of their personal ‘situatedness’; the circumstances, the times and the societies in which they lived. When we read those words, we read them in the context of our own lives today. Of course, the laws of the Torah are directed to a very particular audience: the people formed through the covenant with God at Sinai, and their descendants. As Jews today, we can read the verse in a double-way; from our situatedness within Britain, and from our sense of connection with the modern State of Israel. Like many of us, since the horrific massacres and abductions of October 7, 2023, and as Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza continues to have a devastating impact on the civilian population, I have been preoccupied with Israel-Palestine. I am using that hyphenated designation deliberately: ‘Justice, justice, you shall pursue’; justice for Israel and justice for Palestine; justice for two peoples whose lives and fates are inextricably bound up with one another. One of the most problematic impacts of the past two years has been the way that it has reinforced binary thinking: If I am pro-Israel, I must be anti-Palestine; if I am pro-Palestine, I must be anti-Israel. I must choose between justice for Israel and justice for Palestine; I cannot pursue justice for both peoples.
As it happens, my ‘justice-for-both-peoples’ commitment has an important historical precedent. In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, before the establishment of the modern State of Israel on 14 May 1948, there were passionate Zionists whose allegiance to the land, and whose hopes for the renewal of the Jewish people in the land, encompassed a commitment to honour the claims to the land of its Arab inhabitants. They called themselves ‘bi-national’ Zionists because in their understanding of Zionism the land could only be the home of the Jewish people if it continued to be a home of the Arabs who lived there. During the quiet period which followed the 1920 to 1921 Arab riots, Arthur Ruppin, a member of the Executive of the Zionist movement wrote in his diary on 31 December 1924 (Bein, Alex. Ed. 1971. Arthur Ruppin: Memoirs, Diaries, Letters. London: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, pp.215-6. Translated from the German by Karen Gershon):
What continually worries me is the relationship between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Superficially, it has improved, in as much as there is no danger of pogroms, but the two peoples have become more estranged in their thinking. Neither has any understanding of the other, and yet I have no doubt that Zionism will end in catastrophe if we do not succeed in finding a common platform.
In 1925, Ruppin initiated Brit Shalom, a bi-nationalist Zionist organisation. After publishing its Statutes of Association, he made the objectives of Brit Shalom clear when he addressed the 14th Zionist Congress in Vienna in August (18th-31st) 1925. Ruppin declared (Mendes-Flohr, Paul R. Ed. 1983. A Land of Two Peoples, Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs. New York: Oxford University, p.73):
Palestine will be a state of two nations. Gentlemen, this is a fact, a fact which many of you have not yet sufficiently realised.
The bi-national Zionists of the 1920s, 30s and 40s did not win the argument. Perhaps, bearing in mind the Torah’s teachings on Justice and the current ongoing catastrophe, the time has come to embrace their vision?