Message for Today
by HaRav Dov Begon – Head of Machon Meir
“Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and those that return to her with righteousness.”
“Appoint yourselves judges and police for your tribes in all your settlements… Make sure that they administer honest judgment for the people…. Pursue perfect justice so that you will live and occupy the land that the L-rd your G-d is giving you” (Deuteronomy 16:18,21).
Rashi comments, “Appoint expert, righteous judges to judge fairly. Appointing reputable judges has the potential to bring new life to the Jewish People dwelling in their land.”
Indeed, as Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook said, “Justice and fairness are amongst the very pillars of communal life. As long as any sort of national or social entity exists, it has recourse to a legal system to defend it from anything that might swallow it up” (Orot 50).
If Jewish judges and are righteous and expert, they can bring life to the Jewish People, enabling Israel to dwell in their land. Otherwise, G-d forbid, great suffering and anguish can result. Great moral responsibility rests on whoever appoints judges, for they can bring the nation life. If they are honest and righteous and not profiteers and bribe-seekers, they can become defenders of their nation. They can bestow their beneficent spirit upon the public and cause Israel to dwell in safety in their land.
Today, we bear witness to a deterioration in morality and spirituality. The words of Isaiah 1:23 are being fulfilled: “Your princes are rebellious, the companions of thieves. Every one of them loves bribes and pursues reward. They judge not the fatherless nor does the cause of the widow come unto them.” How can the Israeli secular legal system, whose job it is to pursue justice and to defend the society and nation, instead provide backing to unethical, inhumane deeds? They are aiding in the expulsion of Jews from Eretz Yisrael. They are harming entire families and communities, and destroying homes, synagogues and yeshivot.
Instead of defending the Israeli nation and society, they serve the interests of Israel’s enemies. Instead of strengthening and protecting the unique Jewish identity of the Jewish People, they are working determinedly to make us a nation like all others, without an identity, without a culture, without Jewish values. They are serving the religion of “disengagement” from the people, Torah and land, a religion that those presently in the seat of power ascribe to fervently.
The time has come for a change. We have to elect and to appoint different leaders and judges who are connected to Jewish roots, to the Torah, People and Land of Israel. We need people who will defend the existential security interests and the cultural interests of the nation. And may through us be fulfilled the prophet’s words: “I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called, ‘The city of righteousness, a faithful city.’ Zion shall be redeemed with judgment; and those that return to her with righteousness” (Isaiah 1:26-27).
