Shoftim

 Seeing the Truth

1.A concept found in Torah study is the idea that every Pasuk (verse) is significant. It has meaning to everyone personally and at every time.  This is called    Omnisignificance. 

1. This week’s parshah (portion) gives advice to Judges “you shall not take a bribe, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts just words.”

2. This is good advice for Judges however most of us are not judges, of what significance is this pasuk to us? 

3. One answer I heard from Rav Olbaum is that we should not let our physical desires “bribe” us and influence our choices and judgments in life. When we explore the nature of the existence of Hashem and the ethical standards of the Torah we need to analyze these questions without personal biases.

I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do... For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."  - Adlous Huxley