The entire Torah, then, is saturated with this lesson, even in the parshas that seem to deal with purely ritual issues, bein adam lamakom – between Man and G-d. And the truth is, this is not entirely obvioous, and it could have gone the other way, with ‘love Hashem with all your heart’ as the mission statement, and all the interpersonal aspects of the Torah are really facets of this one relationship. But Hillel would know, and he answered that question without missing a beat.

So when we look at this week’s parsha, how are we to understand the Rite of the First Fruits as an expression of ‘love your neighbor as yourself’? There are many answers to that question, but one that sticks out to me is the short paragraph that the Israelite would read upon delivering the first fruits – ‘An Aramean (Lavan) tried to obliterate my father (Ya’akov), and he went down to Egypt…’

In saying so, I am not only acknowledging my own history, but that of every one else as well. We all have this pain at the core, of being pursued or attacked, of not being settled, of moving from one exile to another. Maybe none of us really feels safe, always wondering if the next Lavan, either personal or national, is waiting in ambush.

The first fruits were brought at Shavuot, the holiday that relives the giving of the Torah. What an auspicious time to contemplate my friend’s needs, specifically at the time when the Torah is coming down. It is a key moment, when we position ourselves to receive the Torah, to receive it intentionally and in the right way. I want the Torah that teaches me how to love my neighbor. So this is a time to bring my compassion for others into my relationship with Hashem.

Rosh Hashanah has a dynamic of receiving the Torah as well. The shofar blow is meant to mimic the shofar-blow of Har Sinai. It is meant to open us up. And at the same time, the shofar is an exercise in listening not just to Hashem but to each other. On Rosh Hashana we are judged individually, but we are also judged together. A huge part of our judgment is how well we are tuning into each other’s needs.

Hoping that this year we will strengthen our commitment not just to the Torah but to each other.

After a short respite to assure us that An Edomite and Egyptian may join after three generations, we are right back into the grind: the injunction that one who has had a seminal emission must leave the warring army’s camp, the commandment to dig a whole in which to move one’s bowels when one is at war, the laws concerning a runaway slave, the prohibition against allowing male or female prostitutes to live among Israel, the prohibition against using money raised by prostitution or selling dogs as an offering to the Temple, and the prohibition against charging interest. The Parsha continues in this fashion, and ends with the commandment to remember Amalek.

This Parsha certainly deals with some of the most uncomfortable issues in the human experience: rape, hatred, divorce, death, bias, chaotic family situations, cheating, bowel movements, etc. The Torah, it seems, has, in Rebbe Nachman’s words, ‘gone down into the mud.’ But like Rebbe Nachman continued, ‘sometimes you have to go down into the mud to drag somebody out.’

If the Parsha did not deal with these issues, it would not be the Torah. It would be a collection of stories and homilies, and not the Tree of Life. For Life, after all, gets messy. And even when it gets messy, we need a guide book to help us deal with it.

The Torah is not wont to legislate emotions. There is, for example, no commandment to love one’s parents – only to respect and fear them. And the Rabbis were actually kind enough to tell us exactly how to respect them: bring them a drink, stand when they come in their room, don’t call them by their first name, don’t contradict them in public. And these are hard enough. But if the Torah were to say, ‘Thou shall not hate thy wife’ or ‘Thou shall not rebel against thy parents’ then we would have people feeling these emotions anyway, and also feeling like G-d and the Torah cannot help them with those feelings.

The Torah honors the fact that these emotions, ugly as they may be, are a genuine expression of the human experience. Then we are offered a sense of direction from that dark place.

Rebbe Nachman in Likutei Moharan I:6 writes that our goal is to be in a constant state of teshuva – return to G-d. Since there is always a deeper level of closeness to G-d, we must be in a constant state of movement toward that elusive goal. That process, says Rebbe Nachman, is marked by two different kinds of time – those times when one’s next step is clear and one need only move forward, and those times when the process is marked by disintegration of one’s current self in order to be able to move forward. Each type of time calls for a distinct set of attitudes and postures – almost opposite in nature. Both types of time, however, are characterized by a sense of moving toward G-d; put another way, each has its own capacity to distract the seeker from the ultimate goal – closeness to G-d – and therefore they have ‘focus on the ultimate goal’ as a common ground between them.

To describe these two states as they work together to comprise the process of teshuva, Rebbe Nachman brings a verse from Psalm 139: ‘If I go up to heaven, there you are; and if I lay my bed in hell, here you are.’ G-d is to be found in both the highest heights and the deepest depths. But the way G-d is found there is different: in heaven, G-d is ‘there’. In hell, G-d is ‘here’.

Our Parsha is hell – war, hatred, family dysfunction, divorce, rape, and incest. And it is essential to know and to believe that, despite the fact that one has descended to such places of suffering, G-d is there. And the connection to G-d is path toward light.

Though the Torah does not offer solace per se in these unfortunate eventualities, it does offer direction. There is mitzvah, even there. One cannot claim that the relationship to G-d does not extend to hatred and war; this might lead one to continue one’s descent. One must realize that there is still mitzvah, still relationship to the ultimate goal, even in these dark places.

And so the laws are explained: if a man should have a wife that he hates and a wife that he loves, and the hate done bore him his first-born son, then that son is the inheritor of the portion of the first-born, though he would rather bestow that portion upon the child of the beloved wife. And though a man be sentenced to death and hung from a tree, the body shall be taken down and buried, for to leave the body up would be a disgrace. And though one is at war, one must bury one’s waste, and one who is impure cannot enter the camp. It is a Parsha of maintaining standards despite the large dose of chaos and animalistic behavior flooding a situation.

We must always know that, no matter where we have descended to, there is no giving up. Every situation is along the road toward G-d. Every situation can be a point of departure for that journey.

Many Hassidic masters – particular those of the line of Pschischa – give an interpretation that focuses on one’s responsibility to govern one’s self. ‘Give to yourself’ is read as the necessity to be one’s own law enforcement.

Is this interpretive move straying from the pshat – the simple meaning of the verse? It must rather be understood as preclusion to the pshat: if everyone is capable of governing himself, there will be very little need for an external system of judgment, of punishment and reward.

These Rebbes remind us that, ultimately, to need an external reference to remind us of our responsibilities to G-d is b’dieved – not ideal. It can be compared to a person who drives too fast, and only slows down to avoid getting a ticket. Rather than use the possibility of financial liability as a deterrent, that person should internalize the danger to himself and to others and have the self-discipline to maintain that ideal.

We are, in most cases, quite capable of being our own judges and our own police. Our Torah is open and available to everyone. Our history is replete with stories of illiterates – like Rebbe Akiva – who became great sages. We are entitled – commanded – to learn; to know for ourselves. And, as Elie Wiesel emphasizes about the school of Pschischa, we are encouraged to relate to G-d directly, without an intermediary.

Understanding full well that there are limits to self-discipline, Parshat Shoftim provides several layers of external reference points: if a matter shall be beyond you concerning the adjudication of a cases between one blood and another, between one law and another, between one wound and another – any matter of strife within your gates – you shall get up and go up to the place that G-d shall choose. And you shall come to the Priestly Levites and to the judge who will be in those days, and you shall ask and they will tell you the solution of the matter (Dev. 17:8-9).

This verse, according to Sifrei on the Parsha, actually refers to the judges at the gates who do not know how to solve a case. They are commanded to go to Jerusalem to seek aid in resolving the matter. It would certainly take a deep humility for the local judge to admit he does not know, and to go to Jerusalem for council.

But there is no imposed standard as to what cases may be decided locally and what cases must be taken to Jerusalem. When the idea of local judges is first introduced, by Yitro to Moshe in Parshat Yitro, Yitro tells Moshe in Shemot 18:22 that the local judges shall bring to him ‘every important matter’. When Moshe implements Yitro’s plan, however, h changes one important detail: ‘and they would bring the difficult matters to Moshe…’

In some cases, an external reference point provides security in the eventuality that one’s internal system of judgment and self-monitoring breaks down. In some cases, however, reference to that external source is required. The Parsha tells us, for example, about the Jewish king who must write his personal Torah before the Cohanim. He is commanded to study the Torah daily. Similarly, a prophet’s reference point is Hashem, who confirms him/her or denies him/her as a prophet by bringing promised signs to fruition.

We might say that the more absolute the person’s power over others, the more that person is responsible to an external authority. A person in his private life is fully entitled to learn the Law and to monitor his own behavior, with judges and policemen available to enforce the law only if his internal discipline breaks down. We have judges who are empowered to decide the law for others but must be willing to go to higher judges to gain insight or information that they lack. When they do go to higher judges, they do not have the option of not listening. We have a king whose will is in most cases immediately implemented throughout his kingdom, but must be immersed in Torah as his outer reference point. And we have the prophet who speaks basically by his own authority, and his word is the ‘word of G-d’ to the entire nation, but whose ‘superior’ is G-d. And each of these figures will have strong temptation to ignore that authority in the form of bribes.

The Torah tells us to pursue justice, and not to take bribes. To take a bribe is to take something of relative value in place of the continued pursuit of that which has absolute value. When a judge takes money, he is willing to pervert justice for the sake of money. So, too, when we sacrifice our ultimate ideals for the satisfaction of a lower ideal – money, recognition, honor, pride – we have taken a bribe.

Each one of these four types of people has a bribe dangling before him, tempting him. The individual is always tempted to rely too much on self-sufficiency. While we are empowered to be our own judges and policemen, we are also told that we are beholden to external judges and policemen. It may be anathema to listen to someone else’s interpretation of law, but there are many times when we are incapable or unwilling to the proper disciplinary steps for ourselves. Being caught doing something wrong can bring a deep shame whereas if a person wasn’t caught, they would not feel that shame.

Similarly, the judge at the gates must know when to admit that he does not know. Being that the judge at the gate is possibly the most esteemed position in the community (see Efron, Lot, Boaz) it would take great humility to seek guidance from his own superiors. The bribe would be to sacrifice that deeper knowledge for the sake of honor or standing within the community.

The king is tempted to realize that he is the G-d-chosen leader of the G-d-chosen people. He might be tempted to seek horses, wives, and money in order to emphasize the power of his position – as the Torah says, ‘lest his heart become haughty among his brothers’ (Dev. 16:20). This is certainly a bribe in light of the higher ideal, which is to selflessly lead the people toward healthy relationship to G-d.

The prophet, too, may be tempted by the height of his station and the near-absolute nature of his authority. No human being can show – at least at the moment of the revelation of his prophecy- that he is not speaking in the name of G-d. The prophet might choose to say what he wants to say or what he thinks people want to hear in order to achieve certain ends, or even for monetary gain, as it says in Michah 3: ‘And the prophets charm for money.’

Each of these figures, therefore, combines the ideal of personal autonomy with a potentially insufficient means of maintaining that autonomy. We are similarly challenged to work toward the ideal of policing ourselves, of learning for ourselves, of being capable of disciplining ourselves without need of outside help. But we are also charged with admitting when we cannot do it by ourselves. The courage to admit that we need help – that we do not know, that we may be wrong, that we cannot control ourselves – and to resist the bribe of self-glorification is our task.

This tension is brought to light when the Jewish people go to war. The priest who accompanies them tells them that if any of them has recently built a house, planted a vineyard, or engaged a woman to be married, he must turn around and return home, as his ambiguous commitment to the war effort might prevent him from acting valiantly in war. But there is another reason a person should turn around: ‘Let all who are afraid, or soft of heart, return to their home…’ This cannot be decided objectively from outside. Every soldier must resist the bribe of avoiding shame, and back down if he is afraid.

It is essential to know that the individual who manages to humble himself enough to truly seek help is not afforded the privilege of rejecting that help. Just as a local judge who seeks a ruling from the central court in Jerusalem is not allowed to stray from that ruling by punishment of death, and a king must write his Torah in the presence of the priests, and a prophet is liable to death if he misreports a prophecy he has received, we must be capable of receiving guidance from without ‘even if they tell you left is right and right is left¹.’

This is because, when we seek guidance from others, it is usually true that we lack more than a piece of information: we lack a perspective. Put another way, we are often seeking a new level of spiritual maturity. It could be that on our current level, left is left and right is right. But as we move forward, our right is actually left and our left is actually right.

For as we move deeper into our perception of reality, as we move closer to truly understanding G-d and G-d’s will for us in the world, we cannot testify about that reality on our own. For we are each but one witness, and one witness’ testimony, as the parsha tells us, cannot establish reality. And we are each, in a way, conspiring witnesses, seeking to establish our own perceptions as reality, and to make others subject to the implications of that perception. And the punishment, of course, is that we are also subject to the limited reality we create – ‘and you shall do to him as he conspired to do²’.