Parashat Shoftim

PARASHAT SHOFTIM (the weekly Torah reading from Deuteronomy 16,18) is dealing with the obligation to establish a legal system and practicing social justice.

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The most known verse from this PARASHA is in Deuteronomy 16,20 and starts with:

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“צֶדֶק צֶדֶק תִּרְדּוֹף”
TSEDEK TSEDEK TIRDOF
“Justice, justice shalt thou follow…”
God is commanding to “chase” (TIRDOF) after justice (TSEDEK).
This obligation also affects the Hebrew language, which ‘chooses’ to use a verb (performing an action) for ‘being right’. This is unlike in English where ‘being right’ is an adjective, a less active meaning and definitely not involved with any action:
צוֹדֵק
TSODEK
“right”

This “choice” the Hebrew language does of using a verb to emphasize a meaning of performing an action where it could use an adjective, happens also the other way around. Where in English there is a verb for ‘having’ (‘To have’), Hebrew does not use a verb in this case. The way Hebrew presents the case of “having” something, it uses the form: ‘there is to someone”:
יֵשׁ
YESH
“There is, There are”
This comes from the faith that all comes from above and we, as human beings do not really perform any action by “having” something.