In this week's Torah portion, we read about Sodom and Gomorrah and the punishment they received. The sages expand and tell about the legal system of Sodom, which was fundamentally distorted. About the clever theories they built in an attempt to create logic behind the laws of evil. They had a coherent philosophy that turned good into evil and evil into good.
These descriptions of what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah serve as a warning sign of the serious danger that lurks in human society when the legal system corrupts its ways and favors considerations foreign to values of honesty and fairness, justice, and equal enforcement for all.
The root is exposed.
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Many in the public are clutching their heads in frustration, as they are exposed to revelations about what took place at the Military Prosecutor's Office, and the conspiracy - there is no other word - that was hatched there against soldiers who were tasked with the difficult task of dealing with disturbances by the heinous Hamas murderers imprisoned in the country.
""Why did they do this?" people ask in pain. "Why did they leak a fabricated, false video that discredited our soldiers throughout the world on an unprecedented scale?".
It is inconceivable that IDF officers would single-handedly work to discredit the military system of which they are a part.
The questions are difficult and disturbing, but the root of the problem is - the preference for the internal system over the good of the general system and the good of the people. It's like a person who wants to get rid of bedbugs and burns down the entire house.
And if we delve even deeper into the roots of this distorted view, we will understand that it stems from a situation in which a certain hegemony holds centers of power, and feels it must defend its hold on them at all costs. This understanding can explain the conduct of the legal system in many areas, the common denominator of which is the desire to prevent other forces from entering these centers.
Therefore, it is good that the affair has come to light and a process of healing can begin. The correction will only occur when these centers of power are not held by a particular group, but rather when there is diversity and representation for all strata of the people. When there are people from the right and people from the left, religious and non-religious, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi - the people of these systems will not be able to think in the terms they think in today, nor will conspiracies of the kind we have seen now be able to exist.
Attention to Jewish values
And for us, as Jews, the legal system must be attentive to Jewish values. It is not possible for an event in segregation to become illegal, or for the court to order rabbis to do things that are contrary to Halacha. With all due respect to universal values, they cannot overrule the values of Judaism, by which the Jewish people have lived for thousands of years.
There is great hope that the current shake-up will lead to a correction of the system, to restoring trust in it, to the participation of all segments of the public in the decision-making processes within it, and this will be preparation for the true correction of the legal system - "And I will restore your judges as at the beginning, and your counselors as at the beginning" (Isaiah 1:25), in the true and complete redemption.
