Rabbi Deborah Reichmann
This week’s Torah portion is Shoftim: Deuteronomy 16:18 – 21:9
Are the concepts of justice and war incompatible? We might think so, but the Torah does not. The name of this week’s parashah, Shoftim, means “judges,” and among the many commandments we find in it are a few with potentially opposing ideas.
We read of the instruction to appoint judges who are charged with this oft-quoted command, “Justice, justice, shall you pursue.” Judges are to avoid corruption or favoritism, and they are to be impartial and fair. But in this parashah, we also find laws concerning warfare. Laws exempting certain people from military service — those who have just started new lives, as newlyweds, as new farmers, as new homeowners — and laws prohibiting deliberate damage in warfare, specifically protecting fruit trees, as they bring forth new life and sustenance, and as such are akin to a human — “For man is a tree of the field.”
While these laws are beneficial at some level, the implication is that war is a human constant, and unavoidable. It is a truism that the best way to protect human lives and nature is not to engage in war, but this is not a lesson to be found in this parashah, or the entire Torah.
From the Book of Genesis onwards, we have read about God meting out harsh punishments, commanding warfare, demanding the annihilation of other peoples and not showing mercy. And yet, we are commanded to wage war in a just way. This duality persists to this day. We speak of the “rules of war,” those that sanction military atrocities and those they are not permitted to engage in. Is this in any way just, or is it merely a nod to inevitability?
If you are on the receiving end of an atrocity, whether it be sanctioned or not, I’m pretty sure you don’t care how it came to pass. But that is the individual, and policy (whether specified by God or by human decisions) looks to overall societal behavior. Apocryphally, Joseph Stalin is supposed to have said, “one death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” While it is cruel, there is an inherent truth here. Humanity cannot avoid violence. It is the concept of peace that is anomalous.
Peace is elusive both as a concept and as an achievable objective. There are a million reasons to be belligerent, be covetous and seek dominance. The reasons to fight for peace (by the way, that’s an oxymoron) are harder to pin down. Peace is undoubtedly beneficial — it promotes trade and prosperity, and it engenders innovation and collaboration. Yet, as each benefit accrues, someone, somewhere begins to want more of something — attention, power, resources, etc. For these and many more reasons, peace becomes ephemeral and seemingly unattainable.
Do we give up because what we’re struggling to achieve is difficult, or nigh impossible? No, I don’t think so. As each era of war brings new ways to inflict destruction and death, each time we strive for peace we renew the search for justice. War might be inevitable, and the Torah teaches that there are limits to it, but the unlimited challenge, the superseding commandment, is to seek some sort of harmony. After all, “Justice, justice, shall you pursue.”
Rabbi Debbie has been the rabbi and Jewish Spiritual Director for the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington since 2020. She joined IFFP in its 25th year and is proud to serve this vibrant community of interfaith families.
