48. SHOFETIM

Dear Friends,

One of the most interesting studies of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) that I know is a book by Evan Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden. It is a fusion of history, anthropology, ecology, and archeology with his own spiritual exploration.

It gives an ecological grounding to the spiritual struggle of the Western Semitic peoples in the face of the emergence of imperial monocrop agriculture in Sumeria. That spiritual struggle resulted, Eisenberg suggests, in the birth of Torah.

The Torah does not include Eco-Judaism; the Torah IS Eco-Judaism.

Eisenberg casts a sardoniceye not only on ancient empires, but also on those in seats of power today. (In this he echoes one book of the Bible: the Scroll of Esther, which is a funny and bitter critique of arrogance in power.) Below is his sardonic Torah commentary on Shofetim and on passages from Genesis, the Gospels of Matthew and John, and Ecclesiastes -- which he calls "THE KING GEORGE VERSION" of the Bible.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

The Torah portion that early asserts, "Justice, justice shall you pursue" (which means "Just ends by just means," said the rabbis) is deeply concerned with putting limits on political and military power. (Deut.16: 20)

The "perek hamelekh" (passage on the king; Deut 17: 14-20), puts constitutional limits on royal power: the king may pile up no horse-chariots for an aggressive war; no wealth out of payoffs for favors; no series of sexual conquests. He must not "send the people back into Mitzrayyim" – the Narrow Place of slavery -- to pay the costs of his army. He must drink in precisely the teachings that limit his powers and empower the poor, by both reading them and writing his own copy of them.