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Shoftim 19-21 and malchus/kingship

Written by Anonymous

Perek Summary
Shoftim 19 – runaway wife reuntied with levite husband and go to givah in binyamin territory. The men of the city surround the house they are staying at, rape her, and thus cause her death. Husband cuts her body into 12 parts and sends it round the Bnei Yisrael

Shoftim 20 – Bnei Yisrael fight against the tribe of Binyamin and, at the third attempt, are successful via an ambush technique.

Shoftim 21 – The Bnei Yisrael regret an oath they had made not to allow their daughters to marry any of Binyamin. They all go to offer up to HaShem apart from Yavesh Gilad (a place). They wipe out YG but give their 400 unmarried girls to the tribe of Binyamin to marry. Plan to marry Binyamin boys with the tribe of Shilo.

Dvar Torah; Malchus (kingship)
Most of what I am about to say comes from R Shimshon Dovid Pinkus (brilliant Rav of Ofakim, Israel, who was killed in a car crash a few years ago.) We always talk about malchus; whether malchus shamayim or the melech hamoshiach, or david hamelech, etc. The last pasuk in shoftim reads “in those days there was no king amongst (bnei) yisrael; each man could do what was correct in his own eyes.” (and variations of that pasuk came up quite a lot in the last chapters) The question is basically what is the Jewish idea of malchus (kingship) and what is its goal?
The answer can be explained via a short story. Imagine in ancient days that there is a place called Persia, with no King – it’s just a place. Now one persian – Bob – goes on holiday to Japan, and a Japanese man comes over to Bob and gives him a smack on the face. What can Bob do; he is one individual surrounded by millions of Japanese people?! Now imagine that the same thing occurs, but this time Persia is not just a place – it is a kingdom and has a King. What changes? Everything – Bob is no longer just Bob the individual – he is now ‘a Persian,’ part of the Persian King’s subjects. So he can now stride confidently up to the Japanese officials and say ‘that Japanese bloke just hit a subject of the Persian King; and if you are not going to do anything about it then I will tell the king and he’ll…’ You get the picture. The point is that a king bonds all his individual people into one collective unit stronger than the sum of the individuals put together. A king does not merely enforce law – he makes the reason for the law in the first place; a collectvie society. The king is thus outside of this collective in order to create this collective entity. The words of the Rambam (hil melachim 3;6) are perhaps most apt; ‘his heart is the hearts of the people’ ie the king is where the individuals mould into one. Thus in Jewish law a king has many halachos which put him outside law, as well as a halacha to fear and respect the king. But most importantly, due to his great position, he has to be modest, and write his own sefer torah.
In summary, the mashal is that king is that thing in a bowling alley that holds the pins together between the 2 throws. When it is there holding the pins firmly together, the ball cannot knock them down. In rosh hashana (not so far away) we speak of HaShem as our ‘melech’ (King) the whole time; it’s ‘hamelech hakadosh.’ And our job as Jews is desribed as to increase ‘malchus shamayim’ ie to become reflections of HaShem’s Kingship, and to mould into one – into His people – a unit much stronger than the sum of its individual parts. Thus a melech is described as the ultimate giver, for he instills the people with their communal identity. And how much more so is the King of Kings, HaShem, the ultimate ultimate Giver of good; the halacha even says that one should accustom themselves to repeat the phrase ‘everything HaShem does is for the good’ (‘kol man d’avid rachmana l’tav avid’).
Have a great shabbes

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