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By Rabbi Shloimie Lindenbaum
שופטים ושוטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך ושפטו את העם משפט צדק (פרק טז פסוק יח)
The Parsha begins with the מצוה of appointing judges. The פסוק says that “Judges, you should place for yourself in all your gates, and they should judge the nation fairly”. The כלי יקר divides the פסוק into two halves- one to place judges for yourself, actually referring to the leaders, that they must properly judge their own actions, and two, then they can properly judge the nation. In other words, in order for a judge to properly evaluate the actions of the people, they must examine and rectify their own actions first. As חז”ל say, “קשוט עצמך תחלה”, “straighten yourself first”. The Ponevezher Rav, R’ Yosef Shlomo Kahanamen, spent a while in Radin, the city of the Chofetz Chaim, in close proximity to the great sage. After, when he traveled to Telz, R’ Laizer Gordon asked him to repeat a lesson from the Chofetz Chaim. R’ Kahanamen told him that every day after תפלה the Chofetz Chaim would say דברי חיזוק והדרכה, words of encouragement and direction, to the people in the ישיבה. One day, he said that he could not speak. He explained that the day before he hadn’t learned enough Torah, and if he himself was not properly devoted to Torah, how could he instruct others about their Torah obligations? It was clarified afterwards that the day before, the Chofetz Chaim had received many copies of his sefer, משנה ברורה, from the printer, and he spent all day checking every copy, ensuring that there were no mistakes, so that when he sold them, nobody would be paying for a copy with errors. This was why he was so busy that he did not have time to learn as he would regularly. Although he was still engaged in a valuable and essential activity, he still felt that he could not demand from the בני הישיבה a level of dedication in which he felt himself lacking.
כי בם בחר ה’ אלקיך לשרתו ולברך בשם ה’ ועל פיהם יהיה כל ריב וכל נגע (פרק כא פסוק ה)
In the Parsha discussing the עגלה ערופה, the axed heifer in the case of an unsolved murder, the Torah tells us that we must call upon the כהנים because “Hashem chose them to serve Him, to bless in His Name, and by their mouth shall be every argument and affliction”. R’ Moshe Feinstein sees in this פסוק four essential qualities in a leader of the Jewish people. This that the כהנים serve Hashem, teaches us that the Jewish leader must have יראת שמים and serve Hashem properly. This that they were chosen to bless the nation, which is only possible through love of כלל ישראל, teaches us that a leader must truly love all Jews. The last two conditions necessitate that even though there must be love, it shouldn’t be a silly and careless love, rather, through that love the leader must know how to properly correct the sins (every affliction), and resolve the disputes of the Jews. Only this is true love, when a leader cares so much about their nation that they make sure that everyone is living their lives properly.
