According to the old joke one Jew brags to a friend, “My Rabbi is so brilliant that he can
speak for an hour on any topic.”
And the friend responds, “And my Rabbi is so
brilliant that he can speak for 2 hours on no topic."
Traditionally we Rabbis are known for talking a lot and
some would say too much. What is interesting, is that while Rabbis are known for
being wordy, the Torah itself is considered to be a text that never uses a word
superfluously. It is for this reason,
that in this week’s Torah portion when we read the word justice repeated, it is
all the more striking.
In this week’s Torah portion, we’re told to appoint
judges and officers in all of our communities, we are then told tzedek tzedek tirdof - justice, justice, shall you pursue. It’s
interesting to think about the way that one might go about pursuing justice as
though chasing after something elusive.
But what is striking is the fact that the Torah says tzedek tzedek - justice, justice. Many
commentators have tried to understand why this word is repeated, some
have talked about 2 types of justice that could be pursued, others have
suggested that it refers to 2 ways of applying justice.
For me, in the first instance, I think that the repetition
of tzedek is a reminder that we must pursue justice for ourselves, but we
must also pursue justice for others.
Justice cannot exist in isolation, it has to be justice for us and for
other people. But the other thing that
the text does is that it insures that we really pay attention to those 2 words: tzedek tzedek. In Hebrew, the word tzedek shares its meaning with the word tzedakah which we generally
translate today to mean charitable or good deeds. In this way, the Torah may be expanded
to saying that we must pursue good deeds and charitable actions, acts of tzedakah
in the world. But more than this, in the
repetition of the word, I think it’s telling us that we need to help others to
also pursue justice.
In this way, as we pursue justice - tzedek, we must also help
others to join us in our pursuit. On
Tuesday evening we began the month of Elul, which is a month of preparing for Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur, a month of spiritual reflection.
This year, we’re taking part in the Elul Mitzvah Challenge, where we’re
asking people to do a Mitzvah in terms of a good deed, record themselves doing
it and then challenge others to also do a Mitzvah themselves www.facebook.com/elulmitzvahchallenge.
In this way, we’re pursuing Mitzvot in the month of Elul and
hoping that we can really help mitzvot
to go viral. What a great way this
could be for us as a community together to prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur and what a great way for us as a community to fulfill the words of this
weeks Torah portion: tzedek tzedek tirdof - justice, justice, shall you pursue it.
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