Parashat Shoftim: Becoming the Judge of Your Own Life

“You shall appoint judges and officers for yourself in all your gates.” This is how Parashat Shoftim begins. Commentators have noted that the verse uses the singular form, “for yourself,” teaching that each person must serve as their own judge and officer, placing a kind of barrier at the gates of the heart and mind to examine what deserves to enter and what is better left outside.

In the words of the Shlah HaKadosh, Rabbi Isaiah HaLevi Horowitz: “There is an ethical hint here... At these gates, a person should place for himself ‘judges and officers,’ meaning that he should always judge himself. This is the meaning of the word ‘for yourself.’”

Today, when the mobile devices in our hands bombard our gates with an endless stream of content, the responsibility is ours: to know what to filter, what to take with a grain of salt, and what to accept. Beyond its digital meaning, however, this idea carries a deeper significance as well.

Learning to Think for Yourself

In his book On Liberty, the British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) wrote: “One who allows society, or their surroundings, to choose their life plan for them needs no ability beyond ape like imitation; but one who chooses their own plan puts all their faculties to use.”

Mill was the product of homeschooling and advocated for empowering the individual. As a child, he studied with his father and with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. By age eight, he was already reading Greek and studying geometry, algebra, history, and Latin.

About a hundred years earlier, the philosopher and political thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), one of the contributors to the great encyclopedia, wrote in The Social Contract: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

In his renowned work on education, Rousseau emphasized the importance of naturalness and freedom in children’s education. He believed that a child is naturally good and upright, and that society is usually what corrupts them. As he put it: “Everything comes out good from the hands of the Creator of the World; everything degenerates in the hands of man.”

He therefore believed that children should spend time in nature, learning about and getting to know the world through their senses and direct contact with reality rather than through books, which he argued could harm natural intelligence and judgment.

Despite his theoretical engagement with children’s education, ironically and sadly, Rousseau left his own children in orphanages. Though he did not excel in practice, we can still learn from him about faith in humanity’s original goodness.

Rousseau’s and Mill’s approach to natural, self directed education may sound somewhat extreme, especially when applied from early childhood. Of course, as groundbreaking thinkers, they needed to sharpen their arguments in order to emphasize their ideas. Beyond that, their views should be considered within the historical and cultural context in which they were written, along with the social critique embedded within them, particularly in Rousseau’s case, as he was active on the eve of the civil upheaval in France.

But the principle that emerges from their words is that a person, whether an adolescent or an adult, must educate themselves, appoint judges and officers for themselves, and become a responsible individual who thinks independently.

At its core, this approach seeks to uncover the authentic uniqueness found within every person, within every soul.

This is not anarchy or nonconformity in the negative sense described in the Book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every person did what was right in their own eyes.”

Rather, the call for self education at the opening of Parashat Shoftim reflects a belief in a person’s ability to be good and to do good. How important it is to reflect on these ideas just before the school year begins and at the start of the month of Elul. Both learning and teshuvah become more meaningful when they arise from within a person, from their freedom and choice, and from the inner foundation that naturally strives toward them.

Education That Reveals What Is Already Within

In contrast to schools of thought that view the education system primarily as a means of instilling knowledge in students, the physician and psychologist Alfred Adler wrote: “The ideal purpose [of schools is] to enable students to develop independent thought.”

In his words: “We are no longer interested in training children merely so that they can earn their bread or occupy a place in the industrial system. We want equal, independent, cooperative citizens who take responsibility in the work of culture.”

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed a similar idea in his description of the self education appropriate for someone seeking to improve their character: “You yourself are the witness, and you alone are the judge; there is no one else in this test.”

While the thinkers mentioned above sought to embrace self education for the sake of authenticity and freedom, Rabbi Kook saw authentic education as a real window into genuine spiritual growth and a connection to the sources of the soul.

“Learned educators come, look at externals, and they too turn their attention away from the self [...] and the self is gradually forgotten,” Rabbi Kook writes.

In his view, when educators seek only to impart information to their students, without addressing the differences between one student and another, they may cut students off from their rich and creative inner worlds and their ability to connect with their unique gifts.

When “the self is gradually forgotten,” the student, and often the adult as well, seeks uniqueness through external traits, such as buying brands, status symbols, and unnecessary technological products, or, in the worst cases, through aggressive behavior and negative attention seeking.

In Rabbi Kook’s words: “The more inner wholeness is lacking, the more nature seeks fulfillment from the outside.”

But external means do not truly establish a person’s spiritual strength, nor do they last: “And if the spark of the self is not given room to shine with its light, then everything that comes from outside will be of no help.”

Rabbi Kook therefore writes: “A person must deepen the impression of inner wholeness.”

Elul and the Return to Our Inner Selves

“I have never let schooling interfere with my education” is a humorous, cynical line attributed to the American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain.

As noted, the idea of “You shall appoint judges and officers for yourself” is not meant to diminish the crucial importance of schools and educational institutions in imparting knowledge, values, character traits, and ways of integrating into society.

Moreover, educators have both the right and the responsibility to build a student’s self confidence. In the beautiful words attributed to Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach: “Every child needs one adult who believes in them.”

But this is the basic and necessary stage. Beyond it, attention must be given, as much as a large educational system can accomplish such a task, to the distinctiveness of each and every student.

As Rabbi Kook put it: “We do not understand education as creating new things in the soul of the person being educated, but rather as supervising and bringing from the hidden into the revealed [...] that which is concealed within them in potential.”

This definition is not intended to reduce the educator’s role. On the contrary. The purpose of education is infinitely greater than simply imparting knowledge.

“The purpose of education [...] is that through it, the inner power of the light of the soul may be revealed,” and “to awaken their inner spirit [of the student], to bring to light through it what is hidden in their depths.”

This optimistic perspective, which believes in the inner goodness and hidden light within every person, is also the foundation for teshuvah out of love, which is meant to reveal and connect with the essence of the human being, the image of Hashem.

This is one of the purposes of the month of Elul: to return to ourselves, to seek out and give expression to the unique goodness planted within us.

In Rabbi Kook’s words: “To be faithful to one’s inner essence, to the spiritual quality of the image of Hashem within them.”

This column is dedicated to the elevation of the soul of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, of blessed memory, who was kidnapped to Gaza and murdered in Hamas captivity, and to the healing of the broken hearts of his dear parents, Jon and Rachel, whose entire inner beings radiate light and nobility.

Dr. Roi Cohen holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Hebrew University and is an attorney and mediator, producer, director, and content creator.