In the "berachot", the declaration appears that our God is "melech haolam", Sovereign of the Universe.
By reciting those words we declare that we accept God as our monarch and acknowledge that we are subject to his commandments. We return to the same leitmotiv in the recitation of the Shema, and in the Alenu prayer, when we say that "we bow and prostrate before the Supreme King of Kings, the blessed saint...", inspired by the text of Devarim 4 "the Lord He is God in the heights of heaven and on earth below, there is no other but Him.
Thus we have internalized measuring the legitimacy of any human government by its moral standard: the way it promotes the well-being of all people, particularly the most vulnerable in society; the poor, the helpless and the foreigners.
The text of our parsha Shoftim offers the option of choosing a king: «When you have entered the land that .A. your God gives you, and you take possession of it and inhabit it, and say: I will set a king over me, "like all the nations" that are around me; You will certainly make king over you”… and adds certain conditions… “But he will not increase horses for himself, nor will he bring the people back to Egypt in order to increase horses;… Nor will he take many wives for himself, so that his heart will not be troubled.” divert; neither silver nor gold will he accumulate for himself in abundance.
This equivocal attitude toward political authority in general, and toward royalty in particular, appears in this week's Torah portion that is, for the most part, concerned with the establishment of Israel's judicial, political, and religious offices for enforce God's covenant: priests, prophets, judges and kings. In this week's portion, we read various regulations concerning the priesthood (Devarim 18:1-8), present criteria for determining legitimate prophets (18:14-22), and command the appointment of judges and other magistrates to administer justice (16:18-20). XNUMX-XNUMX). As we have seen in stark contrast, it presents the establishment of a monarchy as optional.
In the eyes of the Torah, kingship is different from the other three offices, whose authority arises from the covenant relationship between God and Israel. Prophets serve as spokespersons for God and priests regulate and direct the worship of God. Even judges and magistrates have no independent authority. They must follow the divine directive: tzedek, tzedek tirdof – “Justice, you will pursue justice!”… 16:20)).
Unlike the offices of prophets, priests, and magistrates, the office of kingship appears in the Torah as a foreign import. The Torah does not impose a certain political system.
This week we learn that if the Israelites want a king to rule them just as other nations have kings to rule them, they are free to choose one (17:14). However, they need to ensure that their king remains subject to God and God's covenant and is a loyal member of the nation he serves.
If we were to attempt to translate Devarim's terminology to the government systems of our time, we clearly see that its meaning extends to all types of authoritarian or abusive government that present a risk. Even democratically elected governments with centralized governments may also curtail the freedom of citizens. They must be aware of the opportunity for a ruler to aggrandize himself, build large armies, sacrifice the well-being of citizens for his own greatness, enhance his own prestige, and amass great fortunes at the expense of the people (17:16-17). The Torah taught us to control the possible excesses of any regime.
To limit the power of the ruler, the Torah presents what we could describe as a government that is governed by laws and the constitution. Just as the optional king who appears in the parashah must be bound by the covenant and must study his own copy of the law so that he may remain obedient to it (17:18-19), so each ruler is obligated not only to be aware of the Law but to study it permanently until writing the rules and having them in front of them.
Ultimately, the Torah recognizes only one true ruler: God. All human leaders, kings, prophets, judges, and priests, even Moshe himself, are limited in insight, understanding, and wisdom. Even the best rulers are tempted by the advantages of their position and can fall into the temptations of authority. In the biblical context, it is the function of the other offices to remind the ruler that he is a servant of God's people and, above all, like the rest of us, a servant of God obligated to carry out the word of God in the land of God.
Rabbi Yerahmiel Barylka