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We may not be able to heal all the injustices in the world at once, but if we pursue a life based on the foundation of truth and justice, treating others ever more fairly and honestly, then we bring ourselves, and the world in which we live, ever so much closer to our goal. Lessons for Today
Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Eternal your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 16:20)
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The Sefas Emes, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, comments:
“Justice, justice shall you pursue.” There is no final depth or end to justice and truth; we always have to go deeper, seeking out the truth within truth. It is not “true” until the person is entirely unified and prepared for God’s service. Thus, emet - “truth” - contains the first, middle, and last of the Hebrew letters.
The Yehudi of Przysucha taught that the word “justice” is repeated here to say that even in the pursuit of justice, you have to engage justly, without lies.
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Rabbi Pinchas Peli writes:
Let us take one more example: following the order to appoint judges that will not pervert the cause of justice, the Torah again warns us (verse 10) “Justice, justice shalt thou pursue” or “follow.” The question is obvious: why is the word justice, zedek, repeated twice?
The Revised Authorized translation renders it this way, “That which is altogether just, shalt thou follow,” while the New English Bible reads, “justice, and justice alone.” If we stay however with the original Hebrew, the repetition of the word zedek may come to teach us that it is important not only to pursue justice, as one of the highest ideals of Judaism, but that also this pursuit must be carried out in just ways. “Justice (in) Justice (in just ways) shall you pursue.” The aim in no way justifies the means.
Furthermore, “justice” is repeated twice to teach us yet another lesson, that when pursuing justice we cannot remain one-sided.
While there are those who perceive justice to be always on their side, there are others, who in their fervour to do justice to their opponents, tend to forget that there is justice also on their side.
It is, indeed, much more difficult to find a way between two claims, both of whom have justice on their side, than to decide a priori which of the two sides is absolutely just and must be aided.
That is why the Torah twice uses the word justice, “justice, justice - (both sides of justice) - shall you pursue, that thou mayest live and inherit the land.”
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“Justice, justice you shall pursue” is one of the Torah’s great exhortations. Recognizing that the Torah is always economic in its use of language, the double use of the term zedek certainly draws our attention to this somewhat abstract concept and forces us to question the Torah’s intention. Why, as Rabbi Peli asks directly, is the word repeated twice?
In some of his earlier comments, the Sefas Emes expresses the opinion that justice, “is the foundation of everything”. But, for him, justice is essentially synonymous with “truth”. “We need to keep pursuing justice,” he states, because “we can never really come to truth in the fullest sense within this lying world”. Therefore, in this world, the pursuit of justice is a never ending process, only to be attained in the world to come.
This is an interesting perspective, making the pursuit of justice less a matter of social and legal institutions and more a matter of the spirit. Our famous text becomes less a statement about justice itself, which becomes effectively an unobtainable end, and more an a directive about the importance of the pursuit itself. True justice may be impossible in this world, but its pursuit must define everything we do. As the Sefas Emes concludes, “When we pursue justice in this world, we attain it fully in the world to come. “
With no achievable outcome in this world, the pursuit itself become a process without end, and that is the Sefas Emes’ message in this week’s commentary. The pursuit of justice and truth is a never ending process, and their is always another layer to be sought. The Sefas Emes supports this idea with the popular explication of the word emet - “truth” - which is written in Hebrew with the letters aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet), mem (the middle letter of the Hebrew alphabet) and tav (the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet). The truth - the real truth - therefore, must contain the entire truth, beginning, middle and end. We must pursue the truth all the way, going deeper and deeper, ad infinitum. It is a never ending process, but it is only then that justice can be truly achieved.
Lessons for Today
Peli subscribes to the idea that the repetition of the word zedek can best be translated as, “justice you shall justly pursue” and this compliments the Sefas Emes nicely: true justice may not be achievable in this world, but our pursuit of justice must always be done justly. What does this mean? Sometimes it appears that justice in our world may be a vain pursuit. Even is we devote ourselves to justice, and even if we live in a society that strives to be just, on a day to day basis we encounter all forms of injustice, be it social, legal, or even personal. I often wonder at children who go through the developmental stage where they start to feel their own independence and autonomy, only to discover that things do not always go the way they want. “That’s not fair!” becomes the mantra of their age. Well, we never really outgrow that stage, even though we may learn to stop expressing it the same way. As adult, we too live in a world where thinks don’t always go as we believe they should, as we see things that are “not fair” around us all the time. Injustice is rife in our world, and we may often feel powerless to do anything about it. But we can. We may not be able to heal all the injustices in the world at once, but if we pursue a life based on the foundation of truth and justice, treating others ever more fairly and honestly, then we bring ourselves, and the world in which we live, ever so much closer to our goal.
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