TORAH SPARKS

 

 

Parashat Shoftim

eptember 3, 2022 | 7 Elul 5782

Egypt, Moshe promises them that the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again (Exodus 14:13). Their liberation from bondage means that they will never have to work for their Egyptian overlords again. However, later in Deuteronomy we learn that the liberation from Egyptian bondage is in fact conditional. The Torah provides a long and frightening list of curses that will befall the Jewish people if they fail to walk in God s ways their fields will yield no harvest, their children will go into captivity, they will be afflicted by severe illnesses. After over

Torah: Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9; Triennial 19:14-21:9

Haftarah: Isaiah 51:12-23, 51:22

 

 

 

No Going Back

Ilana Kurshan

 

This week s parashah deals with the administration of justice in the land of Israel, including the laws governing the appointment of a king to rule over the Jewish people. The Torah teaches that the Israelites are permitted to appoint a king if they so desire, so long as the king adheres to certain stipulations: He must come from the Jewish people, and he must not be allowed to amass too many wives or possessions. The Torah specifically notes that a king may not own too many horses: He shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since the Lord has warned you: You must not go back that way again (Deuteronomy 17:16). The prohibition on owning too many horses, then, is based on another prohibition on returning to Egypt. But why is it forbidden for the Jewish people to return to Egypt? What does the return to Egypt represent in the biblical and rabbinic worldview, and does this prohibition have any relevance in our own day?

 

For the biblical Israelites, Egypt was associated with servitude and a lack of personal autonomy. When the people prepare to leave

fifty verses of graphic delineation of the horrors that await the people

who disobey God, the curses culminate in a final verse about returning to Egypt: The Lord will send you back to Egypt in galleys, by a route which I told you that you should not see again. There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves, but none will buy (28:68). The return to Egypt is thus presented as a punishment for the failure to obey God s commandments.

 

The Torah implies that if the people do not serve God, they will end up so impoverished as to desire a return to serving their Egyptian overlords. The prophet Isaiah adds that Egypt is not just a punishment for turning away from God; it also constitutes, in and of itself, an act of turning one s back on God. Isaiah underscores the connection between Egypt and horses that appears in our parashah: Wo, who go down to Egypt for help and rely upon horses and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they greatly abound, and they have not looked to the Holy One of Israel nor have they sought out the Lord (31:1). Isaiah s critique is leveled at those Israelites who look to Egypt for deliverance, instead of looking to God

Jews are supposed to lift up their eyes to heaven, as the Psalmist professes: I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth (121:1-2). The desire to return to Egypt reflects a faith in military might as well as a lack of faith in God, like the Israelites in the desert who

repeatedly cried out to Moshe, It would have been better for us to return to Egypt! (Numbers 14:3).

 

The return to Egypt represents a turning away from God not just because of the people s historical relationship with Egypt, but also because of the immoral and idolatrous practices which the Torah associates with the Egyptians and other nations. In introducing the laws of forbidden sexual relationships, the Torah teaches, You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt (Leviticus

18:3). God took the Jewish people out of Egypt so that they might serve God, and not remain beholden to Egyptian idols and ideals. In this sense, the first and second commandments are connected to one another, as if the latter is a consequence of the former: I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt, and therefore You shall have no other gods besides me. Avivah Zornberg writes in The Hidden Order of Intimacy, her recently-published book on Leviticus, that when the people built the Golden Calf at the foot of Mount Sinai, they were giving voice to a primal desire to return to Egypt: The Calf is the unconscious residue of that hindered life in Egypt The Golden Calf represents the psychic constraint of primal attachments (p. xix, 47). Unlike the Golden Calf, which is a fixed and inert object that can never change or develop, the God who liberates the Israelites from bondage identifies as I will be what I will be ever capable of development and self-transformation. The Israelites must free themselves from the grip and fascination of Egyptian idolatry if they are to enter into a long-term, evolving covenantal relationship with God.

 

In Kabbalistic thought, Egypt represents a place of narrowness and constraint in which we are unable to realize our full destiny. Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, could also mean narrow straits or boundaries. Thus the psalmist says, I called out to God from the narrow place [meitzar] (118:5). Not only are we expected to enter into a relationship with I will be what I will be, an ever-evolving

God; we also must seek out places that afford us the freedom to grow and develop and transform ourselves. The prohibition on returning to Egypt, then, is also a prohibition on returning to places that limit us. Each year on Pesach, when we fulfill the Haggadah s injunction to see ourselves as if we have gone forth from Egypt, we challenge ourselves to rid ourselves of the habits and constraints that hinder us from living more fully and freely.

 

Perhaps our parashah imposes restrictions on the king so that the king does not become so drunk on power as to think that he is the ultimate authority. As the prophet Ezekiel reports Pharaoh as saying, Mine is the Nile; I made it myself (29:3). Only God made the Nile, and only God can command our ultimate allegiance. Any time we appoint a human king, we run the risk that he will return us to that place of bondage and constriction in which we are unable to develop our potential freely. Our most foundational journey as a people was from slavery to freedom. We are prohibited to reverse that trajectory of Jewish history. An ever-evolving God desires a relationship with ever-evolving human beings who have left Egypt in all its senses behind.

Go Home!

Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

 

Background: This section speaks of the preparations when going to war.

 

Text: Devarim 20:5-8

5Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying: Whatever man has built a new house and has not dedicated it, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. 6And whatever man has planted a vineyard and has not eaten of it, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. 7And whatever man has betrothed a woman and has not married her, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man marry her. 8The officers shall further speak to the people, and say, Whatever man is fearful and fainthearted, let him go and return to his house, that he not melts the heart of his brethren like his heart.

 

● When the people are going to war, four categories of people are asked to return home. What are the categories?

● What is the logic behind exempting people who fall into each of these categories?

● How would you divide these four categories? Try to find support in the text for your division.

 

Commentar y: Ramban Devarim 20:5

 

He commanded that these three categories [of people] return because one’s heart is on his [new] house, vineyard, and wife and he will flee.

 

 

 

● Ramban speaks of 3 categories. Which one does he not include? Why?

● What is the reason to send away from the battle these categories of people? What about these categories make them incompatible with war? What categories might you apply today?

 

Commentar y: Rashi Devarim 20:8

 

Is fearful and faint-hearted Rabbi Akiba said, take these words as what they literally imply; he cannot stand in the dense ranks of battle nor see a drawn sword. Rabbi Yose, the Galilean, said that it means

one who is afraid of the sins he has committed, and therefore Scripture gave him the opportunity of attributing his return home to his house,

his vineyard, or his wife, in order to veil the motives of those who really returned because of the sins they had committed; so that people should not know they were sinners, and whoever saw a person returning would say, "Perhaps he has built a house, or planted a vineyard or betrothed a wife" (Sotah 44a).

 

 

 

● How, if at all, do the two talmudic views brought by Rashi relate to each other?

● What is the cause of fear in each opinion?

 

 

● The Talmud suggests that the returnees did not go home but rather worked as the suppliers of food and water for the combat forces.

● Rabbinic sources assume that these categories apply in a voluntary war, not in a war of self-defense, in which everyone is obligated to help.

Like Grass

Bex Stern Rosenblatt

 

 

As a people, we define ourselves by our covenant, by the terms of our relationship with God. We are the people whom God took out of Egypt. We are the people to whom God is giving the land that God will show us. We are the people who are commanded to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. We are the people who observe the holidays, rites, and rituals that celebrate us as separate and unique in our relationship with God.

 

 

Our haftarah portion begins with God defining Godself in relation to us. We read, I, I, am the one who comforts you. At this point in our history, we have already been exiled and are now beginning our return. We have already spoken Lamentations, cried out that there is no one to comfort us. Here, God answers us, replying that not only will God comfort us, but also that God s self-definition is as our comforter. God is in relationship with us not as lawgiver or creator, but as source of comfort.

 

 

It is important for God to define Godself to us at this point. A major reason that we went into exile is that we did not know God. We pursued other gods, worshiped the products of our hands. So, God punished us. Now God is providing us with an easy way to return to God, to find our way back to truth amidst falsehoods. We can identify God as God because of God s ability to comfort us.

 

 

The verse begins with repetition. We read, I, I (anokhi, anokhi) The rest of the chapter contains similar repetition of the first word of

phrases, calling emphasis to the repeated word. In this case, it also serves to define God. We can read the first anokhii, the first I, as God s existence in its totality. God is the I, the first speaker, alone and perfect. But the verse continues and God offers another I, another self-definition. God is also the one who comforts us. In this way, God enters back into a covenantal relationship with us. God does hold the power. God is not dependent on us for existence. But God chooses to be in relationship with us, chooses to be our comforter, chooses to self-define as our comforter.

 

 

The verse continues, Who are you that you should fear, man who dies and the son of man who is no more than grass? God has just identified Godself as our comforter. These next words out of God s mouth do not seem comforting. God asks us to identify and define ourselves and then goes on to do it for us. We are mortals, made to expire, a passing phenomenon. We are like grass, growing and dying and growing again. Given that this is the case, we have no standing to fear. God will comfort us and we will die and neither is a cause for fear. Rather, we are given a matter-of-fact explanation of how life works. God comforts us by letting us know who we are and who we can grow to be. We are the comforted people, the people who can face death, who can accept the consequences of our actions, and still uphold our people s covenant.