Judge Righteously

By Moshe Feiglin

And I charged your judges at that time, saying: 'Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. (From this week's Torah portion, Devarim, Deuteronomy 1:16)

Judge righteously. Why does the Torah specify the difference between brethren and the stranger that is with him? Does the Torah direct us to judge Jews differently than non-Jews?

The answer is that justice, which is actually the application of truth, cannot be realized through falsehood. Family standards are different than standards outside the family. The world was created through separation. If we erase our separate identity and pretend to relate to all people as equal - in every place and in every situation - we lose our connection to reality and our ability to judge righteously.

Jews do not have completely equal rights outside their Land. They do not have the right of national self-definition in the US, and they should not have it. The opposite is true, as well. Israel's High Court, motivated by leftist ideology that encourages the removal of separations and the loss of identities will necessarily lead us to the loss of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The High Court decision this week to destroy Migron is a perfect case in point.

Shabbat Shalom