shoftim 5768

Shoftim 5768


This week’s torah portion discusses various laws that are important in the Jewish community to establish law and order. It begins with the law to appoint judges and policeman to decide and then enforce the laws. Later in chapter 18 verse 20 it discuss the laws with regard to prophecy, specifically those of a false prophet whose punishment is through the judicial system of the Sanhedrin whereby he is put to death.
What has he done that makes him a false prophet ad how do you know he is such? Explains the Talmud in Sanhedrin (89.1) When he does one of these acts, a) he prophecies a prophecy that is not his though, it might be true b) he makes up a false prophecy i.e. a lie c) he prophecies the name of an idol.
The Talmud then says for example, chanania ben ezer who did two of the above (see Jeremiah 28.2). He used the prophecy of yirmia as a base for one of his own. This was the sin of saying a prophecy though true but one that was not said to him. And the second sin was saying a falsehood: that g-d will break and remove that yoke of Babylon from the Jews and return the vessels looted from Jerusalem within two years. What is g-d’s response to this false prophet? g-d sent yirima to tell chanaia that he would die before the year is up. Which indeed happened he died in the 29th of tishrie of that year. The last day in the Jewish calendar.
The Marsha explains that though he should have been put to death by the Sanhedrin as the bible command i.e. that he be killed in this case it was not done. The Marsha says it was either because the Sanhedrin could not enforce the law for chanani had to many powerful friends or the Sanhedrin was not operational at that time. Hence the heavens killed him but were acting on behalf of the Sanhedrin.
However the lubavicther rebbe makes an amazing observation here that when heavens act on behalf of the Sanhedrin they must follow the rules of Sanhedrin. Hence in this case chanania ben ezer he would have not been put to death only after two years, the time limit he set for his prophecy, for only then would it be clear that he is a false prophet when he words do not come true. Though “heaven knows” before two years are up, that yirmea is the true prophet yet the torah clearly says that only if the words of the prophet do not come true then he is judged as a false prophet. Hence heaven must wait.
Using this argument and as well the teaching of the alter rebbe in Tanya (egeret ha’tshuva perek 4) who uses chanania as an example of one who is punished with “death by heavens “ and not as one who died by heaven acting on behalf of the Sanhedrin. The Rebbe concludes that indeed according to the simple text he was killed by heaven acting on its own to punish him for saying and going against the prophecy of yermia.
It seems the simple reason why g-d did this was because the prophecy of yirmea and the prophecy of chanania conflicted with each other. It was not a case of identifying whether one is really a prophet but that the false prophet was negating the prophecy of the real one from being heard. Indeed If the Sanhedrin or heaven would wait two more years, during that time conflicting messages would be heard by the people and the people would never repent on time for they would not know whose prophesy was right, thus he needed to be removed immediately.
On contemporary level we learn from here on how to achieve harmony and cohesiveness in a community. Whether in a synagogue or a community, challenging the current rabbi or lay leadership due to thinking as “they are good but not good enough- we can do better”. Finding fault with non-issues in order only to destroy and cause strife in the community by saying this is not allowed or this is allowed when a rav is present, is prohibited. A synagogue has only one rabbi and he need not be like Moses, in order to be followed and obeyed. He need only be sufficient for that community. Though there might be better rabbis and issues that can be improved or corrected never the less during the time the leadership exist he must be followed.
The same with the lay leadership in a synagogue the time and place to be heard is not during services or after services when the schedule is being announced. There s a time a place for suggestions and protests to be heard.
I once heard an example from an old senior rav explaining this with an analogy of a king and a prophet in the first temple era. The navi-prophet spoke the word of g-d the melech-king was to obey the prophet and help him implement his message from g-d. When the king does not like the prophet’s message and disobeys him. Even more so he gets himself his own prophet, a “ yes man”. This leads to the destruction of the temple.
The same in a synagogue, the rav is the prophet and the president is the melech.
When a president in a synagogue listens to the rav and works with him then there is cohesiveness in the synagogue, however in the case he does not or plays power struggles and the like, the synagogue is faced with the challenge of functioning and certainly cannot grow and succeed. Even worse is when you have two prophets-two rabbi’s in a synagogue; one who has been appointed rabbi by the community the other a rabbi in his own eyes who has appointed himself to the position of being the "true” rabbi. He has made it his job to discredit all halachic decisions and all views and opinions of the real rabbi I community issues.

The torah approach is clear “dabar achud ldor”- there is one spokesman for each generation-synagogue for torah regardless if he is like "Shmuel bdoro” like Samuel the prophet or like Yiftach bdoro-yiftach the shofet- warrior in his generation; position of leadership.

based on a likutie sichos of the lubavicther rebbe devarim volume 9