Shoftim. Do we have agency ?

We are in the deeply spiritual month of tshuvah, and here again, in a parasha that at first sight seems entirely pragmatic.

It opens with these words:

שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים תִּתֶּן־לְךָ בְּכָל־שְׁעָרֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ לִשְׁבָטֶיךָ וְשָׁפְטוּ אֶת־הָעָם מִשְׁפַּט־צֶדֶק

“You must appoint judges and officers for yourselves in all your gates that the Eternal, your God, is giving you, for each of your tribes. They must judge the people with righteous judgment.” (Deuteronomy 16:18)

Yes, the Torah always speaks on several levels at once.

On the pshat level (the plain meaning), we discover a kind of civil code: the laws and institutional structures by which a society is built.

But as usual, Chassidut takes us by the hand and leads us to the other side of the mirror, to the inner life of things.

And here is how the Sfat Emet shares with us the symbolic way his grandfather read this verse:

“Let every person know that every small opening of a gate that is given to him is given only in proportion to the measure of the capacity of his heart.”

שידע כל אדם כי כל מה שנפתח לו מעט שער כ"אלפום שיעורין דליבי'

The “gates” here are the gates of my soul.

And these are opened according to the capacity of my heart.

But then — does the verse not say that these gates, which are metonymies for the “cities,” are given by God?

Here we touch upon an existential question of the human condition: free will. If my capacity to open my heart does not come from me, what is left of my agency?

It might seem frightening to say that I do not even have agency over whether my heart is open or closed.

And yet, in a certain sense, this relieves me.

It frees me from judging others:

I used to be a master judgmentalist. That is because, of course, I was judging myself all the time. If my meditation life has taught me one thing, is that in the end, everybody does what they can.

If it is “God,” the Source of Life, who decides the openness of the heart, who am I to judge someone for being stingy or closed-off, someone unable to open to their emotions, someone lacking empathy?

(And who am I to judge myself when I fail to be as open as I would like?)

There is something very beautiful in saying: at the end of the day, everyone is doing what they can.

This one, whoe is so limited in their capacity to love or to give — guess what. Right now, in this very moment, they are doing what they can.

They are acting according to the degree of openness of their gate, according to the capacity of their heart.

This is of course no reason to accept everything, or to resign ourselves to receiving nothing.

The choices we make in our relationships are a completely different question. But judging others is optional.

So remembering that people don't "choose" their heart capacity does free me from the trance of judgment, from feeling superior if I happen to have the grace of a more open heart in this moment.

And yet, perhaps it would be quite sterile that were the final word.

If the capacity of my heart depends on God, does that mean I have nothing to do?

Should I conclude that I may remain passive, arms crossed, watching my life go by, telling myself I have no part to play?

Not so, reminds us the Sfat Emet.

Again, it is up to us to take the first step.

Just as in prayer: even if it is “God who opens my lips,” it is still up to me to turn my heart toward the Source of Life first.

So it is with the opening of the gates of my soul. That is where the Sfat Emet speaks of our role — not only in the opening of our heart, but in the economy of our own emotional regulation.

וגם הפי' כפשוטו להיות שופט ושוטר משגיח על כל הרגשה מפתיחת הרצון והחשק שבלב.

The human being must appoint for himself a “judge and an officer” — to watch over every emotion that arises from the opening of desire and will in the heart.

My first duty is to choose to engage in inner work: discernment (the judge) and mastery of my impulses (the officer/policeman), in the face of my emotions.

שזה נק' שער ופתח בפנימיות האדם

For this is what is called the “gate” and the “entrance” in the inner life of the human being,

יהי' רק לה' בלבד

And it must be only for God.

What will help me in this work of discernment and choice, is to leave open within me the door-not to all my impulses, but to Life Source.

Letting God speak to me. This is what we do when we meditate. We become stiller so we can listen.

In common language, God's voice is what we call intuition.

You know — that small voice whispering deep inside, telling us what we already know, but sometimes would rather ignore.

And sometimes I think that the heart of consciousness work, what we call spiritual practice, is precisely learning to hear this voice more and more — to open the door to the voice of the Source of Life, and let it guide me.

That is why the spiritual path is truly a work:

ושלא להיות ברגילות תוך הטבע רק בישוב הדעת.

We must not remain stuck in the habits of nature, but act with yishuv ha-da‘at — a calm, attentive, grounded mind.

Here then is the first step we must take:

והאמת כי כפי הישוב הדעת והידיעה שהוא רק ממנו ית'.כמו כן זוכה להיות נפתח לו השער.

And the truth is that, according to the measure of this equanimity (yishuv ha-da‘at) and the recognition that everything comes only from Him, blessed be He — in that same measure, one merits the opening of the gate.

When I recognize that everything comes from Life Source — when I surrender my will to something greater than myself — then something opens within me.

When I acknowledge that I am not much, my heart expands.

Without naming them, the Sfat Emet is working with two essential concepts of Jewish spirituality: bitul atsmi (the nullification of my self-will), and mesirat nefesh (self-giving).

These two dispositions arise from two even deeper, correlating concepts at the very heart of Jewish wisdom: yirah (awe, reverence for Life and its Source), and anavah (humility).

How fitting, for we are in Elul.

And when Ishai Ribo sings his own inner path of tshuvah, he reminds us of what we sing on the very night of Tisha B’Av, with Eikhah (Lamentations 5:21), when all seems broken and irredeemably lost:

הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְהֹוָה אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה

“Bring us back to You, O Lord, and we shall return.”

And he reminds us of what the lover of the Shir haShirim (Song of Songs 1:4) whispers to the beloved:

משְׁכֵנִי אַחֲרֶיךָ נָּרוּצָה“

"Draw me after You, and let us run together.”

Yes, the path of tshuvah begins by letting oneself be led.

And the first step of this path is mine: it simply consists in asking to be drawn.

And how fitting — for this month, “the King is in the field.”

He comes out to greet us. Will we come forward to meet him?