Shoftim is the name of the next Torah Portion on the menu, and it means “Judges”. You can read about this portion in Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9. The idea of choosing righteous judges to establish a just society is essential, and goes all the way back to the days of creation. On the fourth day of creation, God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the heavenly places of authority to rule the day and the night. Personally, I see the sun and moon as the king and queen, whereas the stars symbolize the judges of Israel as co-rulers over Israel (Refer to Joseph’s dream). They are placed in the heavenly places of rulership before the subjects of the kingdoms are created and multiplied on day five. Birds point me to the Kingdom of God, and the fish make me think of the nations, essentially to those outside the Kingdom of God, which is the Kingdom of Man. Further along in Shoftim, Moses gives instructions for war.
Can we separate love from justice? The two most popular names for the Holy One in the Bible are God, translated from Elohim, meaning Divine Judge, and LORD, translated from YHVH, the merciful and loving One. LORD God is usually how it writes. Mercy and love lead the way for justice. The Holy One is loving AND just. He will not stand while some of His children destroy His other children, but He is also the Author and protector of life. We cannot have love and peace without justice. God requires every human to pursue mercy, justice, and walk humbly with others and the Holy One. The enemy of this portion is filling the Earth with darkness rather than light, with evil rather than love, and violence rather than peace.
Deuteronomy 10:12: And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Micah 6:8: He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly,
To love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
God asked the Israelites to go into the Promised Land and conquer it in a way that seems to us in the twenty-first century to be inhumane; however, in the Ancient Near East and even in many tribal wars today, when you conquer a community, you often do not want to leave survivors so they do not later try to avenge their people. I think about my children. If someone is coming for my kids with the intention to harm them, can I stand by passively and do nothing and say that I love them? Heck no, I cannot. If I know the threat is still out there, I will tell my kiddos to defend themselves by all means necessary, and I will be front and center, ready to karate chop. God said He would go with the Israelites to battle their enemies (Dt 20.4). The first people that God asked the Israelites to destroy were the Amalekites, who had a hateful spirit towards the Israelites, attacking and killing them as they escaped from Egypt, at their most vulnerable and weakest state. Their motivation was evil and murderous because the Amalekites gained nothing from killing them off.
In this portion, the Israelites are to conquer the land and kill the seven nations that make up Canaan (the number seven symbolizing that these nations were completely evil, as seven is often the number of complete or whole). The reason that the Holy One gives for taking the seven nations out was that they were wicked. If God was going to settle His Divine Presence smack dab in the middle of the Promised Land, then it had to be sanctified and prepared for that purpose. The Tabernacle that Moses and the Israelites built was a sacred space that traveled in the midst of the people for 40 years. They had to keep themselves and the space clean to maintain that Presence. The Temple later constructed had to follow the same protocol. People spend a lot of time focusing on the literal care of the Earth through recycling and being conscious of our footprint on the planet as a living creation. There is a term called tikkun olam, and it means “repair the world.” This repair can be physical or spiritual, and many people are not intentional about repairing the spiritual breach that causes the Earth to cry out to the Holy One—violence, deceit, and injustice.
Genesis 4:10-11: And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the Earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
Job 31:38-40: If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together; If I have eaten its fruit without money, or caused its owners to lose their lives; Then let thistles grow instead of wheat, and weeds instead of barley. (Job is basically saying if he has done any injustice through being crooked or shedding innocent blood, then the land would be cursed.)
Romans 8:22: For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers birth pains until now— and not only creation, but even ourselves. We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Ruach, groan inwardly as we eagerly wait for adoption—the redemption of our body. (The Earth and our earthly nature await a rebirth.)
When we shed innocent blood, both literally and symbolically through deceitfulness and slander, we cause a brokenness in the connection between the Divine Presence and the space He created, intending to fill it. The Holy One not only created humans with the intention of filling us with His Breath or Spirit, but He also created the universe with the intention of filling it with His Presence. God made us from the Earth and Divine Breath (Gn 2.7). The universe is created out of elements and sustained by His Breath or Word (Hb 1.3). Whenever we are deceitful, our spirit breaks (Pr 15.4). Whenever we shed blood, the Earth cries out because blood is what the Earth produced when God made us. Oxygen points to the Divine Breath. We need blood and oxygen to live. When we read the word “Us” in Genesis 1:26, I agree with some sages who believe the Holy One was talking to the Earth. Earth, you provide the blood, and I will give the breath. God made humans in the image of Earth and Spirit, the two fruit-producing trees in Galatians 5. The Earthly nature translates as flesh and blood, or just flesh, and then we have the spiritual nature.
Galatians 5:17: For the flesh sets its desire against the Ruach, but the Ruach sets its desire against the flesh—for these are in opposition to one another, so that you cannot do what you want.
When we do not align ourselves with truth and love, the Earth itself groans because all of creation has the imprint of God’s word, which is truth and love, coursing through its veins. Many religions understand this oneness with creation and God, describing every created thing with a spark of God in it. If God’s Presence is going to reside anywhere, humans must cleanse the space. The seven wicked nations were known for child sacrifice, violence of mass proportions, injustice, and immorality of every sort. God asked the Israelites to clean the land so He could move in.
Deuteronomy 9:5: It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The Bible says the land spits out the wicked and awaits righteous humans to dwell in it because that is when tikkun olam happens, when everything heals and returns to wholeness. Remember that the Divine Presence left the first Temple due to spiritual defilement, including injustice, crookedness, and disobedience (Ezekiel 11).
Leviticus 18:25: For the land is defiled; therefore I visit (bring judgment for) the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants.
The Holy One no longer requires the annihilation of nations. He does, however, allow for war because He knows the hearts of humans and their inclination towards division. Israel, because of the instructions in the Torah, has been and is still the most humane nation when it comes to war. They warn the civilians before attacking through sirens and messages on phones and media platforms, they send leaflets and pamphlets to the areas they will bomb, and they do not retaliate until necessary. They save the lives of the enemy whenever possible. They only fight if the enemy thwarts every effort at peace. They have given their land to a type of Amalekites, people who have a baseless hatred and evil intentions towards them. No other nation has done to an enemy what Israel has consistently done to those who seek to annihilate it. The Torah’s instructions for war come laced with the pursuit of life for every human, and even for the care of the Earth (Dt 20.19).
The enemy we see in this portion, then, is filling the Earth with evil, which causes a type of curse for the Earth and ourselves. When we walk in the right choices (righteousness), love, and justice, we sanctify or return ourselves and the Earth to their original state of being. Wholiness. This return to wholiness allows the Presence of the Holy One to abide in our midst.
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