One of the special mitzvot mandated for a Jewish king is to write a Torah scroll for himself. (This seems to be in addition to the similar mitzvah commanded to all Jews at the end of Deuteronomy.) The Torah when commanding that the king should write a copy of the Torah adds ‘from before the Priests, the Levites’. It is interesting to consider the purpose of this addition. It could be merely an instruction as to where the king would find a scroll to copy from. We learn at the end of the Torah that Moses wrote it down and gave it to the Levites. The king would then need to copy it from them. But it is still not clear why this practical and somewhat obvious bit of advice needed to be included in the mitzvah. If we contemplate the matter more, however, we may find a somewhat deeper and more relevant reason for this addition. The reason that the Torah commands a king to have his own special Torah scroll is to impress upon him the source of his power and its limitations. The monarch in Judaism is subservient to, not above, the law and his job is to uphold the laws of the Torah, not ride roughshod over them. Yet there is another danger of no lesser importance, and one very familiar to us from European history. This is the possibility that the king, far from ignoring the Torah, will use it for his own purposes. He will write a Torah scroll for himself, but see this as taking ownership of Judaism and then manipulate it for his own political ends. The Torah therefore emphasises the necessity of the king taking the Torah from ‘before the Priests, the Levites’. He must go to them to receive instruction in the Torah and acknowledge the existence of an independent religious hierarchy into whose keeping the Torah has been given. It is up to the Levites, and later the Rabbis and scholars in each generation, to determine the interpretation of the Torah, not for the monarch to subvert it for his own ends. The opposite is, however, also true. The Levites are guardians of the Torah from whom the king learns religion. They do not however instruct him in politics. The Torah thus sets up an important separation of powers. The monarch, while obligated to obey the Torah, is not bound by the political opinions of its interpreters. The scholars of Torah are also free to work without political interference. Each serves G-d in his own way and the nation benefits. The breakdown of this system in our days, especially in Israel, and the intertwining of religion and practical partisan politics has caused great damage to both politics and the Torah.
ALIYAH BY ALIYAH SYNOPSIS
Rishon The need to establish a judicial system; including a supreme court.
Sheni The institution of Monarchy.
Shelishi The rights and duties of the Levites.
Revi’i The prohibition of sorcery
Chamishi The institution of prophecy. The law of manslaughter.
Shishi The rules of evidence and warfare.
Shevi’i The laws of siege warfare and ceremony of expiation for unsolved murder.
Haftorah Isaiah: 51;12-52;12: G-d Himself will comfort Zion.
Sidra Statistics
Parshat Shoftim
· has 97 verses;
· is the 5th in Deuteronomy, 48th in the Torah
· 7th longest in Deuteronomy, 37th longest in the Torah
· has 27 pos + 14 neg = 41 mitzvot.
