Shoftim - Foundation of the World

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with hari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in ramaphish israel 5781 2021. this week's pressure has parsed his shelf team and the parsha starts off and the measure starts off what is the concept of the shoftim and the shotrim the judges and the policemen who we are to appoint over the jewish people verse 16 i'm sorry chapter 16 verse 18. 18 you shall place judges and policemen in all of your gates that hashem your god is going to give to you for your tribes the shaft was pat and they shall judge the nation a proper and truthful judgment so the meditation says two different concepts it seems to be they seem to be unrelated and i believe if we look a little deeper at the concepts as they're presented we will see that there's a depth and an incredible important lesson for us to be learned personally in this mitzvah in this obligation to place judges and policemen over ourselves so we have courts and we have judges what is the halacha says the madrish let's say a person has a relative a father a son who is a good judge who's a competent judge is it permitted for a relative to be a judge to preside over the case of his relative our sages say as follows these are the relatives these are considered close relatives a person's father his brothers his uncles from his father from his mother etc llama king what is this coming to teach us we find that when it comes to edus when it comes to testimony close relatives are considered no gay abu dhabi they're considered biased we do not trust close relatives to bear testimony to bear witness just like a close relative is not permitted to be an aide a witness for his relative so too a close relative is not able it's not permitted to be a judge umar is the limer king so where do we find this concept so the mattress is about to explain further but before it does i'd like to just share with you something that the beforeshim explain and that is that what is the concept so on the surface of it the push-up shot the first thing that we would think why can't my relative why can't my father be my judge why can't my son be my judge to preside over my case why does he have to recuse himself so this week he can't recuse the torah recuses him why is that why is that so on the simple understanding of it it's because he's in the gamut over he's biased towards me he's gonna he's gonna do things either in my favor and perhaps maybe he knows me so well he's going to do things worse than a regular judge would do but the bottom line is that it seems that there's a bias but the before should say that there's another aspect of it and that is that there's a concept that fathers cannot bring about the death of their sons and sons cannot bring about the death of their fathers a judge we need to understand it's not just in the case of a capital offense but it's in any case a judge cannot a father cannot be a judge for his son and cause him to receive the death penalty fathers don't do that sons cannot cause their father to get the death penalty sons don't do that and in a similar way when it comes to any judgment it seems we need to understand the depth of this but it seems that it's not the place of a son to judge one's father to bring about a judgment on his moment his his monetary issues or whatever other issues that are involved in the judgment it's not the place of a son it's not the place of a father to do that to his son that is what the torah is telling us it's very interesting it's not just to do with a bias but it has to do with something that's out of order it's not the right place it's incorrect for example is that a ch that a student is obligated to show respect to his teacher and the minute is that in order to show deference to one's teacher a student will speak to the teacher in third person they'll say even though they're speaking directly to the rebbe to the teacher they'll say what does the teacher want what does the rebbe want third person to show respect when it comes to a father or a mother specifically it says that one is not supposed to have that distance one is not allowed to have that distance between a son and a father a son does not speak to his father in third person that's not the right order of things and in a similar way perhaps you can understand the major and this concept that a father cannot be a judge for his son that's not the place of the father the father's place is to guide the child the father's place is to sometimes give muslim to the child to to chastise the child when when the child does something wrong but the place of the father is not to judge that level of judgment is reserved for others okay hold on to that thought says another very interesting concept when it comes to judgment who are the ones generally speaking who are the judges of the jewish people the verse tells us in deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 5 that the quran and the priests the sons of lady they are the ones that if you have a judgment that you need you come to them why because hashem chose them to serve the livium the levites the quran and the priests were chosen to serve in front of god allah they're the ones who give blessings to the jewish people in the hierarchy their correct place the kohana the priests their place is to be the judges they are the ones who understand and search for the the will of god as is manifested in the torah and so they're the ones who if you want to know the will of god you come to them when it comes to any argument between people you need to know who is right you come to them a person has a negative if he has uh an affliction of saras which is a spiritual affliction so the cohen is the one the priest is the one who decides whether that affliction is considered saras and whether the person has to go through the entire ritual which is associated with it says the manager we see that the verse places the concept of the cohen deciding in regards to a negative the leprosy whether it's leprosy it places it next to the concept of the cohen the judge deciding in regards to a case between people just like in order to pass judgment upon a nega a leprous um blemish in order to pass judgment so it needs to be done in the daytime you have to see it so too any judgment has to be only in the daytime or at least begin in the daytime myrrh even prada curry just like when it comes to any judgments in regards to arguments between people the judge cannot be someone who is a relative when it comes to deciding about a leprosy a leprous spot the leprous area on the body has to be done by someone who's not occur if not a close relative who's a cohen okay so that's concept number one we see the concept of the curve the person who is a close relative cannot be a judge i'm shimming emily also another concept which seems to be unrelated but i believe that at the at the core of it at the root of it the base at the root the shairish here is a very important idea and you see that in both ideas i'm in shimmering in leo alti malaga badin according to other others the gear says altimazal zelbadin a person can't person needs to be careful not to downplay in any way the importance of judgment the importance of din it's one of the three legs upon which the world stands our sages tell us and this is actually a mishna in periods that the world stands upon three things what are they al-hadin on judgment the allahamas and on speaking the truth [Music] and on peace if you're missing these three things take a look around the world today and you'll see anywhere where these are lacking there is big trouble if you're missing judgment proper judgment proper courts courts that are perhaps truly looking for the truth courts that truly have power so if you're missing that you're in trouble your society is in trouble if you're missing people who tell the truth if everyone walks around saying lies if the media is constantly saying lies you're in trouble and third of all is peace a desire between people to to live in harmony if you don't have any of those three things the world is shaky says you need to realize that if it's not important to you to make sure that judgments are carried out correctly if the court system is not set up properly the result will be that one of the legs of the world will fall and the whole world will become shaky that's how important that's how important the concept of judgment is the sages say not only is it something which is a foundation of the of the world of the social scene between people and the community and society as a whole but it's also true that the very keys that cover the throne of god's glory one of the one of the foundations of that throne is also then is proper judgment 9 because the verse says how do we know because the verse says in psalms chapter 89 verse 15. righteousness and judgment are the foundation of your throne kindness and truth come in front of you you see the foundation of the throne of hashem of god as it were is righteousness and judgment we need to have things be proper things need to be in their place without things being in their place we have trouble therefore god says and now this this the message comes back to our original verse which we quoted since the punishment what happens if there's not proper judgment in the world what happens if the courts are are all doing things that are improper the courts are biased and they're busy with all kinds of draying they're running you they're running around they're running people around they're not doing things based on the real truth but rather based on biases etc we said that the whole world the foundations of the world shake the foundations of god's throne shake since that's the case have used here and be very careful abandon that's why the torah tells us that it's there's an obligation to place judges and policemen in all of your gates they have to make sure to judge people properly because without proper judgment the world falls apart society falls apart as my fortune say in that mission on office there's a concept of yeshua islam we want to have a running society we wanted that people aren't writing and breaking into stores we want that people aren't running around destroying each other right that's because they'll tell us if not for the fear of the government so people would swallow each other alive it's essential to have true judgment to have courts to have rules that have clear boundaries without those boundaries the society falls apart it's called yeshiva islam we want the world we want people their interactions to work and the only way it works is with proper boundaries clear boundaries enforceable and enforced boundaries great example of this we want to talk about today you're going to look at the rules the rules you have to have a mask you don't have to have a mask you have to get a vaccine or they get a vaccine when in when the rules are enforced then then the rules are really rules when the rules are not enforced the rules are meaningless if we leave it for everyone to voluntarily do that which they're supposed to do so to speak things don't get done now in trying to understand how does the second part relate to the first part the second part is saying the importance of din the importance and how the the judgment without proper judgment so then the world falls apart the first section we're talking about the fact that you can't have a car if you can't have a relative someone who's a relative can't be the one to come along and judge somebody who's his relative what is the connection between these two concepts and and i believe that if we think about it deeply we can see that at the core of the first concept as well is the concept of yeshua islam we're talking about the fact that you need to have proper boundaries you need to have a proper order why because the human being has two possibilities the human being left his own devices will descend into chaos without a torah to guide a person on an individual level and on a societal level without rules and clear boundaries people destroy each other and people destroy themselves without those clear boundaries without those clear there's a clear hierarchy and the hierarchy is broken so the person becomes broken the society becomes broken and that we could say is the core of the issue in the western world it's very interesting in the in the muslim world the boundaries are very strong the hierarchy is extremely clear what is the result we could question if there's you know such great order there as well but look at a country like the uae you look at many most of the countries except for syria in the arab world the boundaries serve to create safety when the boundaries are broken when when things are not clear it creates havoc chaos look what's going on in the united states of america look at what's gone on with the cancel culture etc it's created a terrible terrible lack of boundaries look at the western liberal society and their destruction of boundaries the the family a man and a woman they create children they've created the western societies created a whole problem with that and even even the fact that the man is the one who works the woman is the one who takes care of the home which is the traditional way things have always been that's the way that the torah sets up the hierarchy for the jewish people that's been destroyed look how families have been destroyed throughout the western world i believe that is the issue perhaps we could say in the first section of the mandate because there the message tells us that a father has a certain role the father has a certain one the son has a different role the father cannot be the judge of his son and the son cannot be the judge of the father what is the idea behind that and i think it's connected to something which i heard from irish shiva ravi he said that he was once asked by an irreligious person or he was it was stated by this religious person that he really would like to become religiously orthodox however because of the way that the orthodox treat their women he didn't want to do that to his daughter he didn't want his daughter to have to be closed into a box hidden away and unable to be who she really is to accomplish to be successful in the world maharishi shiva in responding to this issue responding i don't know if we could call it a question because it was more of a statement than a question he said to this person he said look i want you to understand in my home said rajpere my wife is smarter than me she's better than me in many many ways however my wife wants me to sit at the head of the table and she sits next to me why because it's the right thing for the children to see their father to see the father sitting at the head of the table and the mother sitting next to him there's a hierarchy this is already me talking talking about the hierarchy there's a certain natural order and it's easy to get sidetracked with the concept of a natural order because not everything that's natural is good right animals destroy each other and they kill each other that's not what a human being is supposed to do but there's a certain natural sickly it makes sense it's intellectual there's a certain way that things are supposed to be we know and when they're not that way something feels really off it feels off and that feeling of things are not in the right place is destructive the father sits at the head of the table the father is the one who goes out he works and brings home the bread so to speak the money the wife is the one naturally naturally our society has destroyed this the wife is the one who brings up the children who's generally speaking the one who is involved in the home taking it a step further the father has a certain specific role and it's not to be a judge as we said before the father's role is to be a guide the father's role is to give musser shmabani musa listen my son to the guidance the sometimes criticism of your father there's a certain place that the father has but it's not a judge and in order for society to run properly just like there needs to be clear boundaries clear hierarchy there needs to be judges in courts so too there needs to be a clarity in what is the job of a father what is the job of a son in his relationship with his father when those when the hierarchy is broken when those rules are changed it destroys the people [Music] you know naturally the way that a person usually feels about his relationship toward his father or her father is how that person usually feels towards god it's a muscle it's a it's an analogy for us and it's also true the relationship is broken oftentimes the relationship with god is also broken and so we need to understand especially in coming into the mayhem in a certain sense we do understand that god is a judge we know that that's true rosh hashanah is a time of judgment for the jewish people for the entire world god sits on his throne of judgment and at the same time he's a vino malcano he's also our father and we have a true relationship with him where he doesn't judge us and he just loves us that doesn't mean that he doesn't criticize us doesn't mean he doesn't want to guide us doesn't mean we might might get some natural consequences for the things we've done wrong but it's so important to understand that there's a clear specific hierarchy a specific relationship that a father has with the sun which is analogous to our relationship with hashem it's specific it can't be different and if it is different if the the hierarchy is broken if the the father doesn't play his correct role but rather acts as a judge instead of as a father it causes destruction it it ruins the yeshua islam it ruins the peace between people because when the hierarchy is broken chaos ensues i want to bless you i ask you to bless me hashem should help us to be able to recognize what is our role what is our relationship with our children what is our relationship with our parents what does it look like what is our job in that role should help us to have the balance knowing where we are is all about balance so it should help us to have the balance between a certain level of judgment but really deeper understand our role as a guide understand our role as a role model for those around us hashem should help us to have the kashivos to understand the importance of judgment of rules shifting hashem should help us to appoint so to speak judges and policemen over ourselves we need to be our own judges and our own policemen to make sure we are doing what's right thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shabbos this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ahri goldwag [Music]