Friday, August 9, 2013

Judge Not Until You Judge Yourself

Now for a Dvar Torah on This week's Parsha - Shoftim
The Torah tells us that we should set up a system and structure to communicate, clarify and enforce the laws.
But it uses an extra word. Instead of saying "You should assign judges and officers" it says “You should assign FOR YOU judges and officers”.
Many of the commentaries explain that this means that each and every person should do self-reflection. And you should constantly be judging yourself to see if you are doing what you should.
Rav Yeruchem Levovitz explains that it is divided into 2 things:
Judges and officers. And we should apply that to our own self-reflection and development.
Judges teach and clarify the law -
So we must make sure we do what we can to learn and know the laws
Officers enforce the law - So we too must work on ourselves to correct where we need correcting and improve where we need improving.
But the trick is (and this is what truly will make someone unique) is being real honest with ourselves about our shortcomings and what needs improvement.
This is especially our work for this time of year as Chodesh Elul has started and Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur approaches.

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