�Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue:� What is the Meaning of
this Seminal Biblical Verse?

Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof—Justice, justice shall you pursue. These words are taken from chapter sixteen, verse twenty of the book of Deuteronomy. They are emblazoned on the walls of our main sanctuary. They are the motto of our Reform movement’s Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C. For many Reform Jews, they represent an essential message of our faith.

 

Tonight I would like to explore this verse. To probe the meaning of tzedek, justice, in Judaism. I want to do so tonight for a few reasons. First, this week’s Torah portion begins the book of Deuteronomy. This verse tzedek, tzedek tirdof occurs in this book. And the word tzedek appears in Deuteronomy more times than in any other book of the Bible. It is in Deuteronomy that Moses tells the Israelites how to construct a just society. As he says near the beginning of this week’s reading, "Listen to your fellow men, and decide justly [tzedek] between each man and his brother or a stranger. You shall not be partial in judgment. Listen to great and small alike.” Second, to do justly is a central imperative of Judaism. As the Prophet Micah says, “What, O Man, does the Lord God require of thee? Only this: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” Some of the great champions of justice in American history, such as Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, were proud Jews. They sought, as Rabbi Emil Hirsch once said, to build a world of God’s justice here on earth.

 

What does it mean to pursue justice? How does our tradition define justice? To answer these questions, we will explore the seminal verse—tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, “justice, justice, shall you pursue.” Let me preface this by saying that the English word justice is not an exact translation of tzedek. Hebrew is a much smaller language than English. Hebrew began as oral language. Words have multiple meanings. Tzedek is one of them.

 

Tzedek means justice, but not in the way we normally think about it. We usually associate justice with law. Indeed, inscribed at the entry to the US Supreme are the words “Equal Justice Under Law.” In Judaism, law is certainly one aspect of justice. But the Bible distinguishes between the words mishpat and tzedek. Mishpat is procedural law. Parking regulations and contracts are example of mishpat.  Tzedek is much more than legal justice. It encompasses notions of righteousness, equity, fairness, and charity. Following the rules of tzedek requires sensitivity and empathy. We have two excellent examples of this in the Bible.

 

Deuteronomy 14, for example, tells us that “If a man is poor, you may not go to sleep holding his cloak. Return it to him at sun-down, so that he will be able to sleep in his garment and bless you. To you it will be reckoned as tzedakah before the Lord your God. (Deut. 24: 12-13) Tzedakah, which is a form of the word tzedek, cannot mean legal justice in this verse. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has noted, “it speaks of a situation in which a poor person has only a single cloak or covering, which he has handed over to the lender as security against a loan. The lender has a legal right to keep the cloak until the loan has been repaid. However, acting on the basis of this right is simply not the right thing to do. It ignores the human situation of the poor person, who has nothing else with which to keep warm on a cold night.” The point becomes even clearer when we examine a parallel passage in Exodus 22, which states:

“If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am a compassionate God.” (Ex. 22: 25-26)

 

As we see, tzedek means much more than justice alone. Perhaps it is best translated "the right and decent thing to do" or "justice tempered by compassion". Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof is a plea to push oneself to do the right thing—to be empathetic, compassionate, and mindful of others.

 

The Bible also understands tzedek universally. Our sages asked why the word tzedek repeated in our biblical verse. Wouldn’t it have been enough to say simply tzedek, justice, shall you pursue. Why does the Bible say tzedek twice.  Our sages gave a profound answer. In ancient societies, justice was a local matter. Each nation had laws to which its members were obligated. Each nation also had castes where the laws applied differently. In ancient Babylonia, for example, one could be killed for murdering a nobleman, but only mildly fined for murdering a peasant. Ancient Israel also operated partially by this standard. Certain people were held to a different standard. For example, violating the Sabbath was a crime for an Israelite, but it was not for a Canaanite. Yet, Israel went beyond local laws and classes to articulate a universal standard of justice and behavior. The Bible tells that no person may commit murder. No person may steal. No person may commit adultery. One’s tribal status is not the sole governing factor for justice. There is a universal standard. Even God is bound by standards of fairness. Think of Abraham challenging God in the book of Genesis. God is planning to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham says to him:   "God forbid that You should do such a thing - lehamit tzadik im-rasha - to kill the righteous with the wicked - vehaya katzadik karasha halilah lach - so that the righteous should have the same fate as the wicked, God forbid! - hashofet kol-ha'aretz lo ya'aseh mishpat? - Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?" Shall not the Master of Universe do justly…

 

How profound, even audacious, this was of our Jewish tradition. In Judaism, God invites human beings to challenge God. Justice is not something bound by a particular time and place. It is something human beings arrive at through dialogue and debate. It is a universal aspiration.

 

A final aspect of justice is that it is not only an aspiration of society. Justice is a virtue to which of each of us strives. In fact, we have a word for a person who especially just—a tzadik. The word is, of course, derived from the Hebrew word tzedek. A tzadik is one with an integrated personality. A person whose words match his or her deeds. A person who is the same on the outside as on the inside. A person who is sincere, who is kind, and who seeks to serve God and humanity in what he or she does.

 

Such people are hard to find. We live in a world that is trending toward religious fundamentalism. The idea is that the more religious acts and rituals you do, the more certain your faith, the better you serve God. Doubt is frowned upon, and the stricter and more literal your interpretation of the text and circumscribed your behavior, the more righteous you are.

 

Judaism holds out a different version of a tzadik, a righteous person. Indeed, the Jewish mystics tell a story about one of the great Hassidic leaders, Rabbi Dov Baer Schneersohn (1773-1827). One night he was so immersed in his study of religious texts that he failed to notice that his son had woken and was crying. His father, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady, heard the noise, went up to the bedroom, soothed the baby and sang it to sleep. Then he went in to his son, still bent over his books, and said: "My son, whatever you are doing, it is not the service of God if it makes you deaf to the cry of a child." (I thank Jonathan Sacks’ Torah commentary for alerting me to this story.)

 

Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof—justice, justice, shall you pursue. To pursue justice is not simply to follow the law. It is not even simply to work to make better laws. It is a call to become a tzadik, a righteous person. One with empathy, generosity, and faith—one who hears the voice of a crying child. My hope and prayer this evening is that each of seeks to do so. May we see every opportunity in our work, in our families, in our communities to lirdof tzedek, pursue justice. And in so doing, may hear and feel the spirit of God.