Witnessing the True Judge
Chaya Mushka and Nechama Krimmer
"Justice. Justice you shall pursue" (Devarim: 17:20).
In this week’s Torah portion, parshas Shoftim, the Jewish people are instructed to establish courts of justice to determine guilt, innocence, and the appropriate punishments or monetary compensations when litigation is necessary.
Depending on the nature of the trial, a specific number of judges are required to adjudicate. Many may be familiar with the Sanhedrin HaGadol, the highest level of the Jewish court, consisting of seventy-one judges. This High Court was able to appoint a king, authorize offensive wars, and create lesser courts.
The laws of the lesser Sanhedrin teach us a powerful lesson about the Torah's unique concept of justice. The lesser Sanhedrin, consisting of twenty-three judges, was authorized to try capital cases.
How did the Torah choose this exact number of judges for the lesser Sanhedrin? Why not five judges or eleven or forty-seven? What is so special about the number twenty-three? It certainly isn't random.
In the Talmud, Hilchos Sanhedrin, it explains that there must be an equal number of potential prosecutors and potential public defenders in every capital case: ten prosecutors and ten public defenders. It goes without saying that judges were not assigned a specific role to view the facts of the case. All judges were required to be unbiased and impartial.
Two extra judges were added to the ten prosecutors and ten public defenders. Tie breakers, if you will. And in the unlikely case that eleven of the judges voted guilty and eleven of the judges voted innocent, one last judge was appointed to determine the verdict.
In a trial where all twenty-three judges voted innocent, the defendant was, of course, free to go.
But in the rare case where all twenty-three judges found the defendant guilty, the Torah comes to an astonishing and even counter-intuitive decision. The defendant is declared innocent!
How could this possibly be? If the evidence in a trial is so strong and so compelling that not one impartial, ethical, and unbiased judge saw the defendant as innocent, how could he possibly be?
The Torah concludes, that in this case, the judges must have been unduly influenced by some external factor, felt pressured, intimidated, or influenced by the opinions of the other judges, or that the judges, themselves, did not do enough to find favor in the defendant.
In essence, the Torah teaches an amazing lesson that G‑d, Himself, the True Judge, steps in to judge the soul of the defendant in this case and finds the defendant innocent.
As we approach Rosh Hashana, where all nations of the world and their inhabitants are judged, as much as we should endeavor to honestly assess and correct our actions, feel contrition for our shortcomings, and resolve to draw closer to G‑dliness, we should be both joyous and comforted that the True Judge, who sees all things clearly with all potential factors involved, is the one holding our lives in the balance.
May we all take advantage of the holy month of Elul, where G‑d's Thirteen Attributes of Mercy shine gloriously upon us, to turn our hearts to the One who loves each and every one of us like parents love a firstborn child conceived in their old age.
~•~•~•~
Note:
G‑d's Thirteen Attributes of Mercy:
- Compassion before a transgression
- Compassion after a transgression
- Mighty in Compassion
- Merciful
- Gracious
- Slow to Anger
- Plentiful in Kindness
- Plentiful in Truth
- Keeping Kindness to Thousands
- Forgiving Iniquity
- Forgiving Transgression
- Forgiving Sin
- Pardoning
