Shof'tim

Deuteronomy 16:18−21:9

Never Return to Egypt

Resisting the temptation to return, geographically or psychologically, to the site of our bondage

By Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz

Provided by the Jewish Theological Seminary, a Conservative rabbinical seminary and university of Jewish studies.

Several weeks ago, a book review in the New York Times caught my attention.


Janet Maslin, reviewing The Known World by Edward Jones wrote: "Mr. Jones explores the unsettling, contradiction-prone world of a Virginia slaveholder who happens to be black." (NYT, August 14, 2003).

Maslin observed that such situations actually existed in the antebellum south. A black slaveholder-- quite a jarring concept for our rational minds! Nevertheless, such situational opposites are sadly not uncommon throughout history. Indeed, what actually caught my eye in this review was a vignette that the reviewer cited. Augustus, a former slave himself, confronts his son, Henry, who is a black slave-owner: "Augustus, who became free at the age of twenty-two, is aghast to find his son . . . owning slaves. 'Don't go back to Egypt after God done took you outa there,' Augustus warns."

One could hardly imagine a more powerful philosophical and historical statement; and it is this notion of not returning to Egypt that is rooted in this week's parashah, parashat Shoftim.

In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, we, the readers of the Torah, are advised of the stipulations placed on future kings of Israel. The king must be chosen by God, must be an Israelite, may not accumulate many horses, may not have many wives, cannot amass excess gold and silver, and must have a copy of this "Teaching" (i.e. the Torah) beside him.

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