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Shabbat Parashat Shoftim 5773

Shoftim | 4 Elul 5773 | 10/08/2013

Parashat Hashavua: Judges in All Your Gateways

Our parasha opens with the obligation to ensure that there is a reliable judicial system in place throughout our society (see Devarim 16:18). This is a two-sided obligation. The people are commanded to make sure such a system exists and the potential judges are to accept the appointment and carry out their responsibilities up to expectations (Rashi, Derashot HaRan).

Ask the Rabbi: Different Types of Minhag and Their Level of Flexibility

It is said that minhag turns into halacha and that halacha cannot be changed. Yet, I find a lack of consistency. The Bais Yaakov movement changed the minhag of girls’ education. Minhagim come to replace or greatly alter minhag/halacha, such as rewording agreements to allow receiving pay for work done on Shabbat. Why then, can’t we create new minhagim to obviate the minhagim that make agunot “chained” to their marriages?

Ein Ayah: The Importance of Valuing Torah Teachers

Why is the Torah section of sota (the woman suspected of adultery) written next to the section on the giving of terumot and ma’asrot (the tithes given to religious functionaries and Torah teachers)? It is to teach you that whoever has terumot and ma’asrot and does not give them to the kohen will eventually need them [to perform the process of the sota] for his wife … and, not only that, but he himself will need [the tithes for the poor] … and if he gives them, he will eventually become rich …

P'ninat Mishpat: Haste Makes Waste

A husband sued for divorce and division of property with the claim that his wife has a relationship with another man. Shortly thereafter the two presented beit din with a settlement agreement for beit din’s acceptance, in which the wife gave up her rights to most of the property. Months later, she returned to beit din with the claim that the agreement was an unbalanced one and therefore should be revoked.

Refuah Sheleimah

for

Rabanit Itah bat Chana

Ehrenreich

amongst the sick

of Klal Yisrael

This edition of
Hemdat Yamim

is dedicated
to the memory of
R' Meir
ben

Yechezkel Shraga Brachfeld

o.b.m

Hemdat Yamim

is endowed by

Les & Ethel Sutker

of Chicago, Illinois
in loving memory of
Max and Mary Sutker
and

Louis and Lillian Klein, z”l

Hemdat Yamim

is dedicated

to the memory of

the beloved friend

of Eretz Hemdah

Isaac Moinester

whose Yahrtzeit is

5^th of Elul

Hemdat Yamim
is dedicated
in memory of
Shmuel Rozenhak
o.b.m
who passed away
Iyar 6, 5773

A weekly divrei Torah leaflet: A Glimpse at the Parasha, Ask the Rabbi, From the writings of Harav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, zt”l, Pninat Mishpat (Jewish Monetary Law).