Shoftim - 5777

​Deuteronomy 16:18 –21:9
 
Today is Rosh Chodesh Elul, the first day of the new month in the Jewish calendar. Elul is the month immediately before the High Holy Days, our time to prepare ourselves through Chesbon HaNefesh, by reviewing the choices we have made over the past year to reinforce the good we have done and determine where we have faltered and need to improve.
 
Our parasha opens with: “Judges and magistrates shall you place at your gates.” (Deut. 16:18) Rabbi Steven Wernick, leader of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, looks to a beautiful Hasidic commentary which asks, ‘what are the gates?’ The answer could not be more perfectly written for these times: Our eyes, ears and mouth. “In other words,” Wernick writes, “how we understand and react to each other is how we establish a just society.”
 
Our nation is more divided, more polarized than ever – making it ever easier for words of hate and anger to dominate, to become a new ‘normal.’ How we respond, however, is up to us. Now is the time to look back on the year that has past, and forward to what we pray and hope will be a better year to come. Let us examine honestly how we have used our eyes, ears and mouths and weigh the choices we have made, and may we be inspired to use them in the future in the service of compassion, truth and justice – just as our Torah teaches.