Comments (0)Going To Court
Parshat Shoftim
August 21, 2009Rabbi Deborah Wechsler
Special to the Jewish Times
Elul has arrived with a piercing blast. If the shofar somehow failed to set the stage for the Yamim Noraim, this week’s parashah, Parshat Shoftim, takes up the call. Its opening words — Shoftim ve shotrim titen lekha, you shall appoint judges and officials for your tribes — immediately invoke the images of the holidays.
The parashah, with its call for absolute justice, for seeing beyond the outer facade of an individual, for mercy that tempers fierce judgment, begins to suggest what it might be to come before the King of Kings in judgment. This is helpful in doing the work of Elul — namely preparing ourselves for the High Holidays.
The predominant metaphor is that of God as judge and each individual being judged in the heavenly court according to our actions. The Rabbis pictured a heavenly tribunal, the people of Israel passing before God as sheep, a God who sits on the throne of judgment. These are powerful images but they have the potential to be off-putting because the notion of God as judge is just so difficult to embrace. It is much easier to connect with the other High Holiday themes of repentance, gratitude and memory.
A colleague and I lingered upon the image of the synagogue as a courtroom. If the metaphor takes hold, over the course of the High Holidays the synagogue is essentially transformed into a court of law.
Anyone who has been to court knows that how we feel there is a far cry from how we feel when coming before the heavenly court. Or is it?
As of now, I have served on two juries and therefore spent time both in our local Towson courthouse and the New York City court in Lower Manhattan. Seeing the justice system up close was at times interesting, at times sobering, at times frightening, at times rewarding and at times totally foreign. There was much about the system that was incomprehensible to me, such as why the defendant could take the subway home at night while I was sequestered out near JFK Airport. There was also much that was inspiring, such as seeing the judge wrestle with the judgment that she ultimately suspended in favor of giving the defendant an opportunity for meaningful change.
But perhaps these courtroom experiences can help us understand our rich liturgy and rabbinic metaphors. From the moment that I walked down the hallway outside each courtroom, I had those nervous butterflies in my stomach and I wasn’t even on trial!
Maybe lawyers feel differently, but having been in a courtroom once before had done nothing to quiet my trepidations. I imagine it is much the same as reading Torah or delivering a sermon — no matter how many times you have done it before, you are always nervous and rightly so.
The same is true for the High Holy Days. We may have been to shul for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for 10, 20, 70 or 90 years — but still we come with trepidation as we approach judgment.
People prepare for the High Holidays in many different ways. Some check their closets to make sure that the dark suit or good dress still fits. Some put their brisket orders in to the butcher. Some read books to inspire reflection. Maybe this year, we should go to court and begin to embrace the notion of God as judge and the synagogue as courtroom.
Rabbi Wechsler serves Chizuk Amuno Congregation.