This week’s portion presents us with a wealth of topics for discussion. The overall theme remains the foundation for creating society, and this portion speaks to the issues of leadership and, in doing so, touches on the idea of a king, warfare and economics. However, the most famous of these themes remains that of justice and the phrase that every colleague has preached on, Tzedek, tzedek, tirdoff! (justice, justice shall you pursue) (16:20)
Centuries of commentators have pursued what this phrase has meant and can mean. There is the instruction to create magistrates and to judge fairly and there is the repetition of the word Tzedek which often is interpreted as a sign of emphasis. In thinking about this, I wanted to play with that repetition and ask you to consider that this repetition may speak to us as we grow older.
How? Well, consider that first Tzedek as the call to seek a society of justice, that sense of tikun olom that so many of us believe in and work for. But it is that second Tzedek that I want to ask you to look at for I am suggesting that this is not outer directed, but a message for us as we age. What would that concept of Tzedek mean for us as we grow older? How can we “judge” our self as we age? Have we looked at life differently now, do we find the need to re-evaluate how we apply the concept of Tzedek to our own life?
We are at the period of the Jewish year (Ellul began this week) when we are asked by tradition to examine who and what we are and wish to be. How do we judge our self? Shall we look to the coming year as an opportunity to evaluate how we can take better care of ourselves? Shall we see the need to do more self-care? Shall we see the need to see the world and our relationships through a filter of chesed – kindness? Can we, in this season of forgiveness, forgive ourselves for the choices that we have made that did not go as well as we had hoped, and the regrets of those choices still hold us? Can we have the courage to place these choices in the past, to let them go and to see that Tzedek for our soul may mean letting go of the bonds of guilts?
So maybe this portion is also asking us to pursue Tzedek for our soul! This is, of course, highly personal, but this is the season to explore this idea. It may take some courage to hold a spiritual mirror to our own soul, but this is the invitation from the season.
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.
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