Items in today’s column:
*Gathering Insights with the ‘Torah of the Week’ Club
*Bry vs. Gloria match for mayor will find Jews on both sides
Gathering Insights with the ‘Torah of the Week’ Club
SAN DIEGO – Some of our readers belong to “Book of the Month” clubs in which members all read the same book, then gather for discussions at someone’s house, typically followed by refreshments and schmoozing.
If you enjoy comparing your take on a book with someone else’s—both learning and teaching in the process—I recommend that you consider utilizing San Diego Jewish World’s archives to see how our rabbinic and lay commentators over the years have looked at different Torah portions to see what they could glean from it You’ll find great variety as well as considerable consistency in seeing what struck them as important.
Tomorrow, in synagogues around the world, the Torah portion Shoftim will be read. I put into the search bar above the San Diego Jewish World masthead the word Shoftim as well as the alternative spelling “Shofetim” to see what I could find.
This week Rabbi Joshua Dorsch of Tifereth Israel Synagogue looked at the famous saying “Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof,” meaning “Justice, justice, you shall pursue” and concluded that Torah teaches us that determining justice is a complex business. “The Torah does not want us to avoid or dismiss these complexities, but rather asks that we struggle with them,” Rabbi Dorsch teaches. “We don’t always have to agree on what is just and what is right, but we have an obligation to stand up for what we believe to be right, and to engage with those, albeit respectfully, who disagree with us.”
Lay persons Michael Mantell, PhD and Irv Jacobs, MD also wrote about Shoftim this week. I took their commentaries to be corollaries to the idea that as Jews, we must seek justice in the world. Dr. Jacobs, a member of Congregation Beth El, noted that in Shoftim, God says that a ruler shall not amass silver and gold to excess. “Why must a king not acquire too much wealth?” he asks. “The concept is that property acquired while in office is theft, simply economic exploitation. By extension, Proverbs 23: 1-3 states “When you sit to dine with a ruler….Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive.”
Dr. Mantell focused on a different teaching in Shoftim: the idea that even in war, we should be careful not to cut down the enemy’s trees: “When you besiege a city for an extended period, to make war against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down…” the Torah instructs. Mantell, a member of Young Israel of San Diego, commented: “For more than 3,000 years, our ancestors have held far-reaching concern about our environment. Judaism extends our concern beyond trees to include the destruction of anything that benefits mankind, which the parasha describes as bal tashchit. If plant and animal life are affected, we are taught, so too is human life. We are not set apart from nature, and we are not to waste any resources of nature.” That too is a form of justice. https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2019/09/03/dvar-torah-for-september-7-2019/
Because San Diego Jewish World has extensive searchable archives at your fingertips – 32,789 articles, including this one – we can go back in our search to learn what other commentators had to say about Shoftim, again by simply typing the word “Shoftim” in the search bar.
The late Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal of Tifereth Israel Synagogue wrote two columns on the concept of doing justice in the world. In 2014, his daughter Margalit Rosenthal completed a Global Justice Fellowship program sponsored by American Jewish World Service. Rabbi Rosenthal quoted AJWS’s website as saying that the organization “has remained true to our founders’ vision and commitment to tzedakah: empowering people throughout the world to achieve justice and self-sufficiency through the promotion of human rights, education, economic development, healthcare and sustainable agriculture.” The rabbi attended a ceremony in which the Fellows spoke “about how specific texts they had studied and the Jewish lives they led brought them to care deeply about poverty and violence in the world. One of them specifically cited this week’s parasha: tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice, shall you pursue.”
In a 2010 column, Rabbi Rosenthal pondered the meaning of the eglah arufah ritual in which a heifer must be sacrificed in the event that a murder is committed and the perpetrator is unknown. Why should leaders be required to do this? The rabbi wondered. “What the rabbis were teaching us is, that while it is obviously forbidden to commit murder, it is also our responsibility to prevent murder and acts of violence from occurring in our society. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We prevent acts of violence by making every effort to insure that those around us are treated justly and equitably, and that poverty and need do not propel people to a life of crime.”
In our archives, there are also guest commentaries about Shoftim by such out-of-state rabbis as Tsvi Hersh Weinreb, vice president of the Orthodox Union, and Jack Abramowitz, the OU’s Torah content editor.
If you’d like to participate in independent study of the Torah there’s still time to read Shoftim before Shabbat morning services tomorrow. If you don’t have enough time, consider starting next week when synagogues around the world will consider the teachings in the Torah portion Ki Seitzei (Ashkenazic pronunciation) or Ki Teitzei (Sephardic pronunciation).
**
Bry vs. Gloria match for mayor will find Jews on both sides
The Jewish community is likely to be very divided in the mayor’s race in which two strong Democrats are considered the front-runners. One, San Diego City Councilwoman Barbara Bry, is herself Jewish. The other, Californa Assemblyman Todd Gloria, has very strong backing from other well-known Jews, including retiring Congresswoman Susan Davis, whom Gloria considers his mentor.
In one of the more recent developments, Bry joined members of the Save San Diego Neighborhoods to speak against the development of “mini-hotels” which she says have “taken at least 16,000 residential units off the market. This destroys residential neighborhoods and decreases the housing supply for everyone,” she says.
Adds Bry: “San Diego’s housing shortage is a man-made crisis created by politicians unwilling to do their jobs by enforcing San Diego zoning and regulations. Building more housing without addressing the impact of short-term rentals is one big reason rents and home prices are skyrocketing.”
San Diego Jewish World will be watching and reporting on this race with interest, and anticipates making an endorsement sometime before the March election based on the candidates’ positions. We are in the process of preparing a questionnaire for candidates in this and other races and would welcome your input. Are there questions you’d like us to ask that are of specific interest to the Jewish community? Please let me know at editor@sdjewishworld.com
*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com