This week’s parsha, Parshas Shoftim, is best known for the pasuk “Justice,
justice, shall you pursue” (Devarim 16:20). This pasuk is a cornerstone of
Torah living and the important parameters of halacha – that we are to try to
emulate Hashem and create a just society. It is not an easy task, and it is not
always an easily understandable concept when we examine the parameters set by
the Torah.
As an example, this week’s parsha also contains the laws of the egel
arufa, of the heifer killed as an atonement for a man found slain outside of a
city’s boundaries. The basics are thus: If a body is found between two cities,
a measurement is taken to determine to which city the body is closer. The elders
and judges of that city, along with kohanim, must then take a calf that has
never been yoked to a valley and break its neck, washing their hands over it
and declaring “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see [this
crime]. Atone for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, O Lord,
and lay not [the guilt of] innocent blood among your people Israel”
(Devarim 21:7-8).
How is
this justice? It is assumed that the elders and the judges represent the upstanding
citizens of the city, those who are least suspect of such a crime (we won’t get
into the wonderful plots of modern-day murder mysteries). Why must they assume
any level of responsibility?
The most
widely discussed answer is that there is a responsibility to the fact that a
guest in their city was sent on his way without consideration, without escort.
Interestingly, the sefer Taleli Oros cites “Zeved Tov observes that the verse
writes shifcha with a hey at the end rather than shifcho, which would be the
grammatically correct form. He explains that the hey is an allusion to the five
things that a host is required to provide for a poverty-stricken guest:
clothing, food, drink, shelter and escort.” In the case of the man found in the
field, this last one is assumed to have been lacking.
This does
not, however, resolve the question of why the elders and the judges are
responsible. Can they really be expected to know every guest or stranger who
appears in the city and then leaves it? That seems a bit high of an
expectation, especially in a larger city.
Dr.
Arnold Lustiger writes in Chumash Mesoras Harav, based on the teaching
of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: “It is almost frightening how demanding the
Torah is concerning the leadership that goes hand in hand with power. It is a
responsibility that encompasses not only direct action but indirect – in fact,
very removed – action. Of course, the leader is responsible for all his
actions. His judgement must be right; he must not accept bribes; he must act in
accordance with the principles of justice and charity. However, he is also
charged with responsibility for things and events that are, prima facie, far
removed from his concerns and interests. The people wielding power are the ones
responsible for and guilty of the crime (Vision and Leadership, p.48)”
(Lustiger 167).
The laws
of the egel arufah teach us that there is an expectation on the elders and
judges to establish a culture in which the casual taking of a life could never
be acceptable, in which a stranger would never be left to wander off to another
town without protection. This might mean that they make certain to live in the
ideal and to demonstrate righteous living and-or it might mean that they
establish regular patrols to maintain civil law.
The egel
arufa has very defined parameters. It is a halacha that is meant for living in
the land of Israel in a time when we have elders and judges and kohanim. But
the Torah is eternal, and all that we learn in it applies to us in all living
situations. Each of us is or can be a leader in our own way. A parent is a
leader of a family. An organizer is a leader in the community. An upstanding citizen
who strives to be a kiddush Hashem is by nature a leader whom others will
emulate.
The
current civilization has prioritized living one’s true life and has accentuated
a culture of “me” while claiming that this is a truly free and just society. The
clamor of the modern world is to be an influencer by being the loudest or the
brashest or the most “free to be me.” But leadership, as the Torah reminds us
here with the laws of the egel arufah, is really about the weight of responsibility
for the entire community.
