Few Torah portions have been quoted as much as the verse from this week’s reading, Shoftim. In Chapter 16, verse 20, we read the famous Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof (justice, justice shall you pursue). No doubt there will be a great deal of discussion on this verse, and the context that surround the verse, at Torah study sessions this Shabbat. The portion is filled with challenges to our moral equations in our society. How comfortable are we reading the charge to destroy towns that fail to surrender (20) as well as detailed instructions for adjudicating legal disputes. Likewise, we have verses that can be seen in the context of the attempt by King Josiah to cleanse the land of idolatry and false prophecy.
The theme of this portion remains, however, that the Israelites are called upon to worship Adonai, follow these laws and, as a result there will be justice. But what does that word mean now? The Torah may imply that there is one law, one mandated approach to living in society. Many of us have been raised to believe that justice is blind, and that, as the beginning of the portion asserts, bribery and corruption impede the social order. And yet, here we are in 2023 and the evidence seems not to support this idealized belief.
Curiously, let me remind you of a prayer from the former Reform prayer book “Gates of Prayer”. It can be found on pages 249 and 250 and part of it reads as follows: “Once we learned one truth, and it was cherished or discarded, but it was one. Now we are told that the world can be perceived by many truths; now, in the reality all if us encounter, some find lessons that others deny. Once we learned one kind of life, and one reality; it too we either adopted or scorned. But right was always right, and wrong was always wrong. Now we are told there are many rights, that what is wrong may well be wrong for you, but right for me.”
We live in a world and in a time where this meditation rings all too true. We struggle often now with searching for what really makes sense to us and what really is true. The political, social, economic, and even religious age of transition that we are living leaves so many of us searching for a solid foundation upon which to build a life. Part of this, for our generation, may be the return to an understanding that the foundation for this search rests not outside of our own souls, but within each of us. This search for what we call a “mature spirituality” is, I believe, at the heart of our generation’s increase in interest in things Jewish. This is an interest that is seeing huge numbers of people studying (thanks Zoom) and searching. The justice we seek is not a legal one, rather it is a just way to conduct our own lives as we enter life’s third and fourth stages. This search for a mature relationship with our self may mean accepting new realities of life while not giving up on life’s mystery, wonder and joy. We have the benefit of life experience which the columnist David Brooks affirmed in a recent New York Times column from August 11. “Mature people are calm amid the storm because their perception lets them see the present challenges from a long-term vantage.” Brooks notes that a blessing of maturity means that we can exit our “me” centered world to allow us to “absorb, understand and inhabit the views of others.” Perhaps the justice we need to pursue is the justice of self-acceptance and that of the acceptance of others’ views so that instead of a society of silos, we can build a society of cooperation, kindness, and respect. Certainly, our life experience has shown that social progress is more likely to be achieved in this approach.
Shabbat shalom
Rabbi Richard F Address
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
AMEN!