Shoftim - Who Are The Judges Sitting At Your Gates?

<p><b> Shoftim</b></p><p><br></p><p>The Torah commands us to appoint judges and officers at our gates. The Shelah hears something deeply personal in those words. A person has seven gates—two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and a mouth—and all day long, life passes through them. We see something. We hear something. We get a certain sense of what happened. But the evidence does not interpret itself. Somewhere inside us, a judge decides what it means.</p><p><br></p><p>And judgment alone is not enough. The <i>shofet</i> determines what is true; the <i>shoter</i> makes sure that truth enters the way we live. Without <i>shoftim</i>, religious practice becomes external compliance without real ownership. Without <i>shotrim</i>, our deepest values remain beautiful ideas that never make it into the world.</p><p><br></p><p>This shiur explores the inner meaning of <i>shoftim</i> and <i>shotrim</i>, and the unsettling connection Chazal draw between appointing an unworthy judge and planting an Asheirah. Sometimes we give a voice a title, a platform, and authority—and then bow before the stature we ourselves created.</p><p><br></p><p>The central question of Parshas Shoftim is not only whom a society appoints to judge. It is whom we have allowed to sit at the gates of our inner world.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>