Shoftim

The parsha opens with a command that sounds civic and turns out to be intimate: "שֹׁפְטִ֣ים וְשֹֽׁטְרִ֗ים תִּֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ בְּכׇל־שְׁעָרֶ֔יךָ" - "appoint judges and officers in all your gates." The Kedushat Levi catches the reflexive titen lecha, "appoint for yourself": the court that rules on your case is one you install, at your own gate. And the warning about that court is blunt - "כִּ֣י הַשֹּׁ֗חַד יְעַוֵּר֙ עֵינֵ֣י חֲכָמִ֔ים", "the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise." You don't have to be crooked to be bought. 'They bought my soul for a pile of cash' is always cheaper than it should be, and the Torah keeps the price small on purpose, because a small price still blinds a chacham.

"צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף" - justice, justice, pursue it. Say it twice and you get two chases. The Kedushat Levi runs the whole thing on the mishnah's rule that as a person measures, so he is measured: when you judge someone favorably down here, you build the very gate mercy uses to reach you. So the harder pursuit is the generous one. 'No one knows how far he traveled' - you're handing down a verdict on a road whose beginning you never saw. 'There's just no explaining the things people do', and that not-explaining is exactly the room where the benefit of the doubt lives.

But the judge sits at YOUR gate, so aim the severity home. 'I beg my mirror image for a moment with my soul' - strict with yourself, and only there. And I'm reminded of the Tweezer from the Bomb Factory in Dallas, May 7th, 1994: the band let the jam wander clear off the thread, and instead of bailing they spent the back half chasing it home - one tzedek for the wandering, one for the finding, until the room landed somewhere true. May we build our gates generous, measuring out to others the mercy we're hoping finds its way back to us. Good Shabbos, phriends.