Parashat Shoftim contains 41 mitzvot, 14 positive and 27 negative. Among these are some of the most fundamental rules for how a Jewish state is to be governed, who the leaders are, what their ...

Parashah Shoftim (“Judges”), found in Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9, emphasizes the foundational principles of justice and ethical leadership in Jewish law. Moses instructs the Israelites to establish fair ...

Whosoever saves a single life, it is as if he saved an entire world. We affirm this principle in our rituals and practices, from the blessings we place on our children at Shabbat, to burial rites, to ...

I can remember one of the first spiritual-psychological Chasidic texts that I studied, a text that opened the gates to a lifetime of study. When I was about 28 years old – 1982 – one of my teachers ...

How many times have I looked at the sky, noticed the stars, the moon, the sun? How many times have I looked around and seen trees, animals, fish, humans? So many times that I’ve looked at the stars, ...

On the eve of battle, most soldiers are afraid, fearful of death or injury, fearful also that they will run, uncertain that they are prepared to kill. Rabbi Akiva, who is usually the most fanciful of ...

A Hebrew leader must embody the aspirations of his people to the extent that he becomes a microcosm of the entire nation of Israel and his personal identity is absorbed into that of the national ...

A true leader is one who first and foremost rules over himself and his emotions. A person who can be overtaken by negative emotions cannot serve as a leader. In the weekly Torah portion Shoftim, the ...

The power of the legal system is in many ways the closest humans can come to godliness. It is through the rule of law that humans create order out of chaos, rein in the powerful from abusing the weak, ...

An analysis of the Torah’s approach to war reveals that war is only undertaken as a last resort. Consider the opening verse in the section dealing with war, “When you come close to a city to fight ...