Devarim Fall 2020 5 Seats of Authority

(8) If a case is too baffling for you to decide, be it a controversy over homicide, civil law, or assault—matters of dispute in your courts—you shall promptly repair to the place that the LORD your God will have chosen, (9) and appear before the levitical priests, or the magistrate in charge at the time, and present your problem. When they have announced to you the verdict in the case, (10) you shall carry out the verdict that is announced to you from that place that the LORD chose, observing scrupulously all their instructions to you. (11) You shall act in accordance with the instructions given you and the ruling handed down to you; you must not deviate from the verdict that they announce to you either to the right or to the left.

(12) Should a man act presumptuously and disregard the priest charged with serving there the LORD your God, or the magistrate, that man shall die. Thus you will sweep out evil from Israel: (13) all the people will hear and be afraid and will not act presumptuously again.

(14) If, after you have entered the land that the LORD your God has assigned to you, and taken possession of it and settled in it, you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” (15) you shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen by the LORD your God. Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kinsman. (16) Moreover, he shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since the LORD has warned you, “You must not go back that way again.” (17) And he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess.

(18) When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. (19) Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. (20) Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel.

(4) Know, then, that I have sent this charge to you that My covenant with Levi may endure—said the LORD of Hosts. (5) I had with him a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave to him, and of reverence, which he showed Me. For he stood in awe of My name.

(6) Proper rulings [Heb. Torat Emet] were in his mouth, And nothing perverse was on his lips; He served Me with complete loyalty And held the many back from iniquity. (7) For the lips of a priest guard knowledge, And men seek rulings [Heb. Torah] from his mouth; For he is a messenger of the LORD of Hosts.

(4) All the elders of Israel assembled and came to Samuel at Ramah, (5) and they said to him, “You have grown old, and your sons have not followed your ways. Therefore appoint a king for us, to govern us like all other nations.”

(6) Samuel was displeased that they said “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD, (7) and the LORD replied to Samuel, “Heed the demand of the people in everything they say to you. For it is not you that they have rejected; it is Me they have rejected as their king.

(18) The day will come when you cry out because of the king whom you yourselves have chosen; and the LORD will not answer you on that day.” (19) But the people would not listen to Samuel’s warning. “No,” they said. “We must have a king over us, (20) that we may be like all the other nations: Let our king rule over us and go out at our head and fight our battles.”

(21) When Samuel heard all that the people said, he reported it to the LORD. (22) And the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed their demands and appoint a king for them.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “All of you go home.”

(1) The words of Lemuel, king of Massa, with which his mother admonished him: (2) No, my son! No, O son of my womb! No, O son of my vows! (3) Do not give your strength to women, Your vigor, to those who destroy kings. (4) Wine is not for kings, O Lemuel; Not for kings to drink, Nor any strong drink for princes, (5) Lest they drink and forget what has been ordained, And infringe on the rights of the poor.

(6) Give strong drink to the hapless And wine to the embittered. (7) Let them drink and forget their poverty, And put their troubles out of mind. (8) Speak up for the dumb, For the rights of all the unfortunate. (9) Speak up, judge righteously, Champion the poor and the needy.

(1) Right or left: "Even if he tells you about the right that it is left or about the left that it is right" - [that is] the language of Rashi. And its matter is that even if you think in your heart that they are erring, and the thing is simple in your eyes - [just] like you know [the difference] between your right and your left - do like they command. And do not say, "How can I eat this completely forbidden fat" or "How can I kill this innocent man," but rather say, "So did the Master who commands command me to do with the commandments, that I should do His commandments, according to all that those that stand in front of Him - 'in the place that He shall choose' - instruct me; and He gave me the Torah upon the understanding of their minds, even if they err." And this is like the matter of Rabbi Yehoshua with Rabban Gamliel about Yom Kippur that fell out according to the calculation [of Rabbi Yehoshua] (Rosh Hashanah 25a).

And the need for this commandment is very great, since the Torah is given to us in writing, and it is known that the opinions are not [all] the same concerning all of its implications. And [otherwise] the disagreements would grow and the Torah would become several Torahs. And the verse set forth that we should listen to the High Court that stands in front of God 'in the place that He shall choose,' about all that they tell us concerning the understanding of the Torah - whether they received its understanding, one witness from the mouth of another, and Moshe from the mouth of the Omnipotent; or they say thus according to the meaning of the Scripture.

Or its intention is that in accordance with their opinion does He give them (other [variants of the text]: us) the Torah: even if it is in your eyes like the replacing of the right with the left; and all the more so, when they say about the right that is right - that you must think that the spirit of God is upon the servants of His Temple, 'and He will not leave His pious ones, they will always be protected' from erring and from stumbling.

And the language of Sifrei on Shoftim 154 is "Even if they show to your eyes about the right that is the left and the left that it is the right, listen to them."

JPS Translation of 1917

thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose; one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, who is not thy brother.

Metsudah Publications Translation, 2009

Appoint are you to appoint over yourself a king whom Adonoy, your God, will choose. From among your brothers are you to appoint over yourself a king; you may not place over yourself a foreigner who is not your brother.

The baraita continues: And so would Rabbi Yehuda say: Three mitzvot were commanded to the Jewish people upon their entrance into Eretz Yisrael, which apply only in Eretz Yisrael: They were commanded to establish a king for themselves (see Deuteronomy 17:14–15), and to cut off the seed of Amalek in war (see Deuteronomy 25:17–19), and to build the Chosen House, i.e., the Temple, in Jerusalem (see Deuteronomy 12:10–12).

The baraita continues: Rabbi Nehorai says: This biblical passage about appointing a king was stated only in response to [DR: in anticipation of] the Jewish people’s complaint, as it is stated: “When you come unto the land that the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say: I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me” (Deuteronomy 17:14). The verse indicates that appointing a king is not a mitzva and that when Samuel spoke to them, he intended to frighten them so that they might regret their complaint and retract their request for a king.

(6) Similarly, he must not be preoccupied with women. Even if he has but one (wife) he should not be found by her all the time as with the fools, and as it says, “Give not your strength to women” (Proverbs 31:3).

Regarding the steering of his heart away, the Torah has already been exacting and said, “Do not veer your heart” (Deut. 17:17). For his heart is the heart of the entire Congregation of Israel. Therefore, Scriptures has attributed to him that which is written in the Torah, more so than any other member of the nation, saying, “all the days of his life” (Deut. 17:19).