By Rabbi YY Jacobson

The King’s Torah’s

In this week’s parsha, Shoftim, the Torah teaches us a fascinating mitzvah concerning every Jewish King: 18 And it will be, when he sits upon his royal throne, that he shall write for himself a copy of this Torah on a scroll from [that Torah which is] before the Levitic kohanim.

19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord, his G-d, to keep all the words of this Torah and these statutes, to perform them.

Asks the Talmud: Every Jew is obligated to write a Torah Scroll (Sefer Torah), as the Torah states explicitly (“And now, write for yourselves this song, and teach it to the Children of Israel. Place it into their mouths, in order that this song will be for Me as a witness for the children of Israel.” The Talmud understands it as an obligation to write the entire Torah). If so, why does the Torah give a separate mitzvah for the king to do this?

The Talmud explains that the Torah is instructing the Jewish leader to write not one, but two Torah Scrolls. One travels with him wherever he goes, and one remains permanently at home, in his private treasury. But why? What’s the point of the king having two Sifrei Torah?

Timeless and Timely

There is, perhaps, a profound message here. The Leader must hold on to two Torah’s, as it were. One remains in his treasure chest; the other travels with him wherever he goes, in the words of the Mishnah: “He goes to battle, and it goes with him; he enters the palace and it enters with him; he sits in judgement, and it sits with him. He sits down to eat, and the Torah is there with him.” There are two elements to Torah: On one hand Torah represents the unwavering truth that remains unchangeable, unbendable, un-phased by the flux of time, space and history.

Shabbos never changes. Tefilin, matzah, shofar, sukkah, mikvah, mezuzah, the text of Torah, the bris milah—these are eternal, unchangeable, Divine laws and truths. The same delicious or horrible “stale” matzah we ate 3300 years ago in the desert we still eat in the 21st century in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. The same ram’s horn we blew two millennia ago is still blown today the world over. The same tzitzis, the same Shabbos, the same Yom Kippur, the same kosher laws, the same conversion laws, the same Torah. But there is another element to Torah—its ability to give perspective and guidance to each generation according to its unique needs, challenges, struggles and experiences. Each generation is different. The issues that plagued us a half-century ago are not the issues we confront today, and conversely: today we have dilemmas never experienced before in history. Our bodies, psyches, souls, sensitivities, and environments are different. Our world has changed in significant ways. Torah must also be a blueprint and luminary to the unique journeys of each milieu, to the climate of each generation, to the ambiance of every era, to the sensitivities of each age, to the yearnings of every epoch.

Yeshayahu HaNavi says: My Lord has granted me a tongue for teaching, to understand the need of the times, to give knowledge to those who thirst for knowledge.

A Jewish leader—and every one of us is a leader in our own individual way—must have two Torah’s. One Torah remains immune to change. One pristine Torah Scroll never leaves the ivory tower of the king’s treasury house. It speaks of truths of life and of G-d that are timeless. It transcends borders of time, geography, and people.

The Kilogram

There was once a report concerning ‘The Kilogram’ in Paris. ‘The Kilogram’ is a calibrated weight by which all other kilograms in the entire world are measured. It is kept in triple layered glass casing, to ensure that it is in no way influenced by the elements. Unfortunately, scientists are afraid that this standard kilogram has been losing some mass over the years. This, at least theoretically, has ramifications for all types of commerce throughout the world. The pure kilogram standard must never become corrupted!

The famous Maggid of Dubno once told the story of a country boy whose fame as an archer had spread far and wide. A delegation of the finest archers traveled to his farm estate in order to see for themselves if the rumors were true. As they approached the estate, they observed hundreds upon hundreds of trees, each one painted with a target, and in the center of each bullseye there was a single arrow. Amazed at the sight, they asked the lad how it was that he had become such a fine shooter. He replied plainly that he would shoot the arrow first and then paint the target around it. This is the error some make with Torah. You can’t just keep on adjusting Torah to your predefined positions and desires. If Torah is truth, it is true in all times and in all places. If it is not true, who needs it all together?

But it is not enough to just teach a timeless Torah. A leader must also find in Torah the language of G-d to this particular generation, to this individual person, to this unique situation, to this singular struggle, to this mindset and weltanschauung. Torah has the capacity to speak to the timely as much as to the timeless, to the modern as much as to the ancient, to the future as much as to the past, to the things that are always in flux as much as to those that remain unchangeable.

To Find Your Bio in Torah

This is also the deeper meaning of the Torah’s words: “And it shall be with him and he should read it all the days of his life in order that he learn to fear G-d, to observe all the words of this Torah…” The Torah is telling us more than just the fact that the king has to read the Torah throughout the days of his life. The actual literal translation reads: “He should read in it all the days of his life.” This means that the Jewish leader must be able to see in Torah a perspective for “all the days of his life,” for everything that transpires in his life and in the life of his people. He has to read in it (v’kara bo) his entire biography (kol yemei chayav), all the events of his life. Every new situation has a perspective from Torah, guidance from G-d’s blueprint for life.

The Balance

It is not always an easy balance. How can the same Torah address both the timeless and the timely? If it was relevant 3000 years ago, how can it still be relevant today?

The answer is: Since the Torah comes from the Creator of the world, He embedded into the Torah all the changes, developments and fluctuations of history. The Torah is the Divine blueprint not only for timeless truths, but also for timely issues and questions—it speaks to each generation addressing its dilemmas and concerns.

The late Israel Shenker, a New York Times reporter, interviewed the Lubavitcher Rebbe for his 70th birthday. Here are his words published in April 1972, in The Times: “To the suggestion that his orthodoxy marks him as a conservative he [the Rebbe] objected, saying: ‘I don’t believe that Reform Judaism is liberal and Orthodox is conservative. My explanation of conservative is someone who is so petrified, he cannot accept something new. For me, Judaism, or halacha [Jewish religious law], or Torah, encompasses all the universe, and it encompasses every new invention, every new theory, every new piece of knowledge or thought or action. “Everything that happens in 1972 has a place in the Torah, and it must be interpreted, it must be explained, it must be evaluated from the point of view of Torah even if it happened for the first time in March of 1972.” These are the “Two Torah’s” a Jewish king—and by extension every Jewish teacher and leader—must possess.