Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Parashat Shoftim 2

now we continue to verse 8 and this is speaking about Sanhedrin the high court if a matter of judgment is hidden from you which means you come to your local court and you ask them and there are three judges or more and they talk about it but they can't come to a consensus they're not sure you shall rise and Ascend to the place that Hashem your God shall choose which means Jerusalem to the judge who will be in those days referring to the um the high court the Sanhedrin you shall inquire and they will tell you the word of judgment so the procedure is you go to a local Court you ask them and if they know they tell you the Judgment if not you go to the Regional Court and if not you go to the tribal court for the entire tribe and if they also don't know then you go to the highest court and even in the highest court there are two of them first the one that is sitting in front of the Temple you approach them and they try to solve it and if they cannot solve it then you already go into the betamic dash into the Azara it's there was a special room called Gazette and there the Sanhedrin said and then they will tell you the word of judgment and you shall do according to the word that they will tell you and you shall be careful to do according to everything that they will teach you and you shall not deviate from the word that they will tell you right or left and that applies to any um Court any court that tells us what to do we have to listen and we cannot deviate right or left and not only that it actually applies even when we ask advice from our own rabbi there is a special Divine assistance given to a rabbi when someone asks him a question we do not claim that rabbis never make mistakes but we do claim that rabbis receive Divine assistance and if the rabbi is honest without a bias and he tries to give an honest answer he will receive Divine assistance and therefore the person who asked the question must follow the advice of the rabbi and if he follows it Hashem will guarantee that everything will work out perfectly but if the person will say oh probably the rabbi doesn't know I know better and he will try it's guaranteed that it will not work out why because or the person is disrespecting the authority of the rabbi has because the rabbi is someone who learned Torah someone who who represents Hashem and the person who asked him pretended that he honors Torah honors Hashem but when he heard an advice that that that disagrees with his preconceived notions or his bias with his desires all of a sudden he throws it out and he says I know better where is his Reliance on Torah where is his Reliance on Hashem and Hashem says you think you know better okay I will let you try try it let's see how it goes and Hashem withdraws his Divine assistance whereas when a person says Hashem I'm gonna ask the rabbi who represents you and I'm gonna follow exactly what he tells me Hashem says oh you're relying on my representative that means my name is on the line I have to make sure everything works out for you and then Hashem helps you and even if the rabbi makes a mistake Hashem says I'm not gonna allow this to cause you any harm and Hashem rearranges the whole Creation in order to make sure that the path that you took on the advice of the rabbi will be the best path for you now it goes so far that even the members of the high court themselves have to follow the consensus of the Court which means the way we decide the law is the judges vote on on any matter and we follow the majority of judges therefore if the majority of Sanhedrin decided that the law is one way and one of the judges thinks that he knows better and he thinks that his colleagues are making a mistake he is not allowed to disagree with them and contradict them he is not allowed to teach this law otherwise he cannot say yes even though the Sanhedrin ruled like this but I really know that they made mistake and therefore I'm going to teach my students the other way no not only that even the president of Sanhedrin the Chief Justice who is the elder who is the most wise the most experienced if he is voted like the minority and my majority of Judges voted against him he the chief justice is not allowed to rule opposite of the Sanhedrin and therefore the Torah says in verse 12. and the man who will act with the willfulness not listening to the kohen who stands there to serve Hashem your God or to the judge or the Sanhedrin that man shall die and you shall destroy the evil from among Israel that means that anyone who willingly goes against the Court rule deserves death penalty even if he is the greatest judge in the land that we call this a rebellious Elder yes you might be with a highest degrees with the most letters after your name it doesn't matter even if you think you are right you have to submit you have to accept the opinion of the majority now we come to verse 14 and on that speaks about the Jewish King when you come to the land the Hashem your God gives you and you will say I will set a king over myself like all the nations that are around me a Jewish people at one point Hashem says will want to have a king like every other Nation a king is not a Jewish invention Jewish people did not have Kings until later in history our Kings were our spiritual leaders first it was our forefathers avraham then it was Moshe whom God appointed to be the prophet and he appointed Moshe in front of the whole Jewish Nation and we believed Moshi because we saw and heard God speaking to us and God said that Moshe is going to be the middleman I will tell Moshe what to say and he will tell you and after Moshe it was the the leaders that were either appointed by um the previous leader like Moshe appointed Joshua or it was God's chosen leader it was usually a prophet we called him a judge there's a book of of prophets it's called team the judges that lists all the judges from yahushua and on until the first king so Hashem recognized that sometime in the future the Jewish people will look around and they'll say to themselves we are a strange Nation every other nation has a king a political leader and we don't we want to be like everyone else even though this is wrong Jewish people should never feel that we want to be like other nations because we're special we're different We Are Holy but a Time came at a low point in Jewish history when Jewish people did not have enough pride in their way of life and they said we want to be like everyone else like it says like all the nations that are around me and Hashem says if that's what they want I will allow them to get a king you shall surely set over yourself a king whom Hashem your God shall choose from among your brethren shall you set a king over yourself here we learned that a a king over the Jewish people must be born Jewish very similar to the American law that American president must be born in the United States you cannot place over yourself a foreign man that convert in the first generation cannot be a Jewish King his children can later that changed when the kingship was established after David hamiller from the tribe of Yehuda the king now originally didn't have to be like that the first king from was from the tribe of binyamin but once David became the king Hashem promised to him that all future kings of the Jewish people will be from Yehuda and from David direct line father to Father not through mother through father um and Kings have three laws um in addition to all the other laws the Jewish people have and that is verse 16 he shall not have too many horses only enough for his army and uh to take care of his needs to travel he should not have collection he should not make special shows of horses partially the reason for this is because best horses came from Egypt and Hashem didn't want the Jewish people to associate with Egyptians because they were evil and he said I don't want you to go to Egypt too many times it's not going to influence you positively second rule is he shall not have too many wives a king has a limitation on how many wives he can have a regular Jewish man does not have a limitation as long as he can satisfy his wives physically financially emotionally he is allowed to marry as many as he can handle but a king is limited because Hashem recognizes that a king has a great burden on him he has to take care of the entire nation and therefore he will be more limited in his time and attention he will not be able to take care of so many wives and second reason is we don't want the king to be busy with his many wives so that he should not be distracted from his government duties and the third rule is he shall not greatly increase silver and gold for himself which means that a king should take care of the nation rather than worrying about how to make himself rich and therefore there was a limit on how rich a king can be Jewish kings were not into Gathering large treasuries they were into building a temple building infrastructure for the people improving lives of people and the King had an additional positive commandment in verse 18 He Shall write for himself two copies of this Torah in a book every Jew is supposed to have a copy of the book of Torah in the language that he can understand so that he can read it and the king must have two why one to keep at home and one to carry with him at all times as it says it shall be with him and he shall read from it all the days of his life so that he will learn to fear Hashem his God to observe all the words of his of this store and these decreased to perform them why why does the king need to have a second copy always on him so that his heart does not become haughty over his brethren and not turned from the Commandment right or left so a king is in a very dangerous position because he is in charge of so many people he might mistakenly believe that he's better he might mistakenly believe that he has special Divine Powers as many kings believed including um the the side of Russia they believed that he was God's Messenger on Earth in and including pharaoh who thought that he himself was God so a man who has a lot of power he might easily become arrogant and and Hashem says he should have the book of Torah constantly with him it was attached to the arm just like we attached to Philly into our arm the book of Torah it was in Small format attached to his arm and he was constantly reminded I am a Jew I have God over me I am appointed by God God oversees me and this power that I have is not mine God gave it to me God can take it away and I'm just mortal now in chapter 18 we speak about Priestly gifts gifts to the kohanim verse 3 this shall be the Dew of the kohanim from the people from those who perform a Slaughter he shall give the Quran the four leg the front leg the front leg the jaw including the tongue and then more the more means the stomach which means in Israel any Jew who slaughtered a an animal a domesticated animal had to give a gift to kohen three things part of the front leg the jaw with the tongue and as the part of the stomach and only then he could eat the rest another thing verse 4 the first of your grain wine and oil that is called teruma we take a portion from our Harvest and give it to kohen and the first of the shearing of your flock that's called rishitages if you have five or more sheep and you shear it you cut off their wool you have to take a portion and give it to kohen the the next paragraph speaks about the fact that kohanim have the right to serve in betamic dash and even though they divided into 24 groups each group would have one week and they would rotate however if a kohen wants to come and volunteer he is allowed to and he could participate in the service as well when the levite here it refers to the Cohen will come from one of your cities with all the desire of his soul to the place that Hashem will choose to betameegdash in Jerusalem then he shall minister in the name of Hashem his God like all his Brethren the Levites the kohanim portion for portion shall they eat except for what was transacted by the forefathers which means whatever The kohanim Divided among themselves at the beginning when they divided into 24 groups that shall stay with the group however anything that is um not part of that deal the Korean can participate and share um in the division now verse 9 and on we learn about nine forbidden practices they're called occult practices um like Witchcraft and so on there shall not be found among you one who causes his son or daughter to pass through the fire this was the idols of worship of Molech or one who practices divinations or an astrologer or one who reads Omens or a sorcerer or an animal charmer or one who does a forbidden form of inquiry into the future called of or one who does another form of predicting the future called hid Oni or one who consults the Dead all these and plus many more forbidden occult practices or are included in these prohibitions now anyone who does these is an Abomination or to a Hashem you shall be wholehearted with Hashem your God means you should rely only on Hashem not on Sorcerers not on gadalki not on capitalists not on any anything else even if the method that they're using is kosher it's still not good to find the future just be wholehearted and say Hashem I'm ready to live the life that you present me with Hashem I'm ready to choose the best in every situation I'm not going to try to predict the future I'm not going to try to influence the future Hashem whatever you want I'm ready to pass all tests and since Hashem is really in charge all our attempts to change the future are not gonna succeed it's compared to a grand master of Chess who is playing a a beginner and the beginner thinks that oh I can make this move and I can make this move but the Grand Master will direct the game in such a way that the the beginner will not stand a chance of doing what he wants he will be forced to move his pieces the way The Grandmaster pushes him and The Grandmaster will win anyway if it's not going to be this way because of the foolish mistakes that the beginner is making it's going to be another way but the Grand Master is gonna win anyway so too we're just spinning our Wheels we're just wasting time by trying to take shortcuts and trying to predict the future and avoid it the only way to make our future better is to be good right now to learn what our requirements are what our mission is and to do the best to ask Hashem for help and rely on Hashem for bright future now in verse 15 uh the Torah explains to us how can we know what God wants a prophet from your midst from your brethren like me Moshe says shall Hashem your God establish for you to him shall you listen according to all that you asked of Hashem in Mount Sinai when you said I can no longer hear the voice of Hashem my God so that I shall not die which means at the resolution on Mount Sinai when the Jewish people witness God they came to Moshe and they said Moshe is too much for us we cannot handle it can you please take over and Moshe as Hashem Hashem said fine from now on it's not going to be direct Revelation from God to every Jew rather I'm gonna reveal myself through a prophet then Hashem said to me I will establish a prophet for them and I will place my words in his mouth and any man who will not listen to my words I will exact from him which means we have an obligation to listen to the words of the Prophet if the prophet commands us something we have to listen as if God himself commands however the now is a possibility of a false prophet when God communicated with every Jew we knew it was for real but now if we have to believe a man that he heard something from God there might be a false prophet but the prophet who willfully shall speak a word in my name that which which I have not commanded him or he shall speak in the name of the Gods of others that Prophet shall die and we have been plagued by false prophets by false Messiahs included in this is Muhammad who spoke in the name of God and created his own religion we denied him and we still deny him and included in this is is uh the god of Christian Christians who was another Jew who came and said God spoke with me and my friends and here I am to give you a new testament who said no thank you we're happy with the old one so it says that Prophet shall die and that explains why he was put to death now when you will say in your heart how can we know the word that Hashem has not spoken how can we differentiate if the prophet is true or not so if the prophet will speak in the name of Hashem and that thing will not occur then with willfulness has the prophet spoken you should not fear him that means uh one way to determine if the prophet is true or not is to ask him make a prediction with great precision not only a general prediction but tell us exactly what they what time exactly what will happen exactly who is going to be involved how the events are going to unfold and then we're gonna sit patiently and wait when that day comes and that time comes and we witness that something that nobody would be able to predict unless he had the knowledge from God and it happens then we know he is um he is a true prophet now chapter 19 speaks about the Cities of Refuge that if someone kills by accident he will be able to run to those cities to save himself separate three cities for yourselves in the midst of your land and prepare the way mark it clearly so that when the person killed someone by mistake and now he has to run for his life to protect himself from the family of the victim who might become angry and pursue he has to know exactly where the City of Refuge is it has to be equidistant spread out throughout the land so that no matter where he is he will be able to run to the nearest one and it has to be more clear that all the roads have to say IR McLeod The Refuge city is this way one who will strike his fellow without knowledge and he did not hate him he shall flee to one of these cities and live now verse 8 speaks about the Messianic times when Hashem will broaden your boundary and give you the entire land and that includes the North and the West all the way to the Euphrates River then you shall add three more cities to these three which means there were total nine cities three on the western side of Jordan River three on the Eastern side of Johnny River and three in the future lands that we will have soon in our days however besides these nine there were other 42 cities smallest cities they were called the levite cities which also could serve as refugee now in verse 11 we speak about premium