Shoftim - Who Are The Judges Sitting At Your Gates?

Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg · Aug 13, 2026 · 35m

Shoftim

The Torah commands us to appoint judges and officers at our gates. The Shelah hears something deeply personal in those words. A person has seven gates—two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and a mouth—and all day long, life passes through them. We see something. We hear something. We get a certain sense of what happened. But the evidence does not interpret itself. Somewhere inside us, a judge decides what it means.

And judgment alone is not enough. The shofet determines what is true; the shoter makes sure that truth enters the way we live. Without shoftim, religious practice becomes…