Rabbi Barry Leff Digest
Number 53  Date 090403 

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Shoftim 5763

        In this week’s Torah portion Moses tells the people that in the future prophets will arise, and the people should listen to them.  Have you ever thought what it would have been like to be a prophet?  No fun, I can assure you of that.  Take poor Jeremiah.  He lived during truly horrible times for the Jewish people:  the 6^th century BCE, when the Babylonians were building in strength, getting ready to destroy the Temple and lay waste to Jerusalem.  And what does God tell him to do?  Go out and tell the people how messed up they are.  That destruction is coming because they have turned away from God, they are not following the Torah.

        Think about it.  This was a time of war.  No doubt the people would have preferred to hear about how God was on their side and the bad guys were a bunch of heathens and God was going to smite them.  But that was not the message that God gave Jeremiah to deliver.

        As I started thinking about the message in this week’s Torah portion, I had a feeling of identification with the prophets of old.  Not that I’m a prophet: I’m not.  When I talk to God, the conversation is purely one way—and God is the one doing the listening.  But when I started my weekly process of trying to hear God’s voice in the text of our weekly Torah portion, I wanted to find a message that was uplifting and supporting of Israel.  Tzedek, tzedek tirdof--justice, justice shall you pursue--is the most famous line in this week’s Torah portion.  I was thinking about how justified Israel is in this war she is fighting for her survival.  Yet, like it or not, as much as I wanted to focus on that, the repetition of justice also brought to mind a verse from Exodus (12:49): “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger.”

        The truth is, Israel comes up short when looking at the standard of Torah echat yiyeh l’ezrach v’lgar, you will have one law. 

        I’m not talking about the Arabs living in Palestinian Authority territory today – I’m talking about Israeli CITIZENS – the Muslims, Christians, and Druze who make up 20% of the Israeli population.
        It is well known that Israel spends only 2/3 as much on her Arab citizens as on her Jewish citizens.  The Ministry of Religious Affairs spends only 2.9 percent of its budget on the Muslims, Christians, and Druze.  Israeli Arab children get less than half the government spending per student than Jews get.  And during demonstrations and riots in October 2000, Israeli police snipers used live ammunition against unarmed Arab demonstrators, killing 13 – something that it has never done against Jewish demonstrators.    Israel proclaims herself a “Jewish, democratic state.”  The Arab joke is that it’s a democracy for Jews, and Jewish for Arabs.  No wonder there is great discontent among the Israeli Arabs.    

Still, it’s true that despite these inequalities Arab citizens of Israel live much better, and in a freer society, than Arab citizens of most Arab countries.  Among other things, Arab women in many middle-eastern societies can’t vote – or even drive!!  But all the Arab citizens of Israel need to see is how they are treated by the Israeli government as compared to their Jewish neighbors to know that they are considered second class citizens.

Besides which, in some ways it doesn’t really matter that the Arabs in Israel have a better life than Arabs in other countries.  The standard we are held up to is not the “standard of the other guy.”  Our standard is the Torah, not Saudi Arabia.  And the Torah in this week’s parsha admonishes us to pursue justice, to treat the “homeborn” and the stranger the same before the law.

        It seems like it’s “not fair.”  Like we’re being held to a higher standard than other countries.  It’s true.  We are.  We are charged by the prophet Isaiah to be a “light to the nations,” to show the way, to be a good example.  I agree 100% that OTHER nations should not single Israel out for blame.  If there are going to be boycotts against Israel, there should be boycotts against all the other nations that have human rights issues—e.g., Saudi Arabia, China, etc.  However, amongst ourselves, we should remember that we DO hold ourselves to a higher standard.  Can we be proud of Israel’s civil rights record if it doesn’t live up at least to the standards of, say, Canada?   

        There are those who would say, fine, but this is a time of war, we are focused on our survival, once we have that we can worry about the niceties of creating a more just society.  Nonsense.  You don’t have to wait until peace breaks out to assure that Arab and Jewish first graders get the same number of crayons.  In fact, the very same famous verse we’ve been focused on in this discussion, “justice, justice, you shall pursue,” contains the reason why: the verse continues “in order that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”  Let me repeat that:  “pursue justice IN ORDER THAT you may thrive and occupy the land.”

        We are a tiny nation.  God didn’t give us Eretz Yisrael because we are so powerful.  We get to live there because of our faith in God and our commitment to justice (well, OK, AND because our army can kick butt, and by most estimates Israel probably has at least 100 atomic bombs).  But perhaps this verse—which proclaims that it is through being just that we merit the land—explains why Jeremiah gave his harsh criticisms even during time of war. 

Justice brings its own reward.  If Israel had a truly just society, one that treated Arab citizens equal to Jewish citizens, there would be far fewer social problems.  Perhaps Israel’s Arab citizens would work to appease the anger of their Palestinian cousins, rather than share – or worse yet, take up arms to act on – that anger.    Perhaps being truly just will, like our famous verse says, in fact be the secret to living long in the land of Israel.

The verse tells us that no matter what is going on, how difficult the times are, we must live up to our ideals.  This message is especially appropriate for today, the first Shabbat in Elul, the month of spiritual preparation leading to the High Holidays.  Don’t let difficult times be an excuse for not doing the teshuva, the repentance, that you need to do.  No matter how good you are—even if you are “more righteous” than your neighbor—you still have spiritual work to do in becoming even better.  As the Hebrew National ad says, “We answer to a higher authority.”

Shabbat Shalom.

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