In this week's Torah portion we find the exalted commandment, "Justice justice shall you pursue." (Dt. 16:20). But justice is not  easily achieved, which is perhaps a reason the word is repeated. The Rabbis develop various principles to achieve justice, as the great modern Jewish legal scholar, Menachem Elon writes, "The halakhic authorities established the principles of justice and equity in Jewish law as primary norms that determined the substance of judicial decision--principles to which all other rules were required to yield, however legally valid such rules might otherwise be." (Jewish Law, vol. 1, p. 176). Already in the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Metzia 30b) Rabbi Yohanan teaches, "Jerusalem was destroyed only because they gave judgments therein in accordance with Biblical law. Were they then to have judged in accordance with untrained arbitrators? But say thus: because they based their judgments [strickly] upon Biblical law, and did not go beyond the requirements of the law. (Lifnim meshurat hadin -- going beyond the letter of the law to achieve justice) (Soncino, Nezikin vol 1, p. 189). In Mishnah Peah, the laws of those who may take public charity, we find in the final mishnah, "...he that needs to take from the gleanings, the forgotten sheaf, the peah or the poor man's tithe and does not take them shall not die in old age before he has come to support others out of his own goods. Of such a one it is written, 'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is...So, too, is it with a judge that judges a judgment of truth according to its truth. (Decides on justice to its depths)" (Jeremiah 17:7) About this Moshe Yehiel HaLevi writes in Torah Temima, "And it appears simple to me, that the intention is that the judge who judges 'judgment according to its truth' and does not recognize the litigants (is not partial to one over the other) and does not fear them and sometimes suffers damage and distress from this, also regarding him Scripture says, 'Blessed be he who trusts in the Lord,' like the one who needs to take from the public coffers but does not take, because the value of both of them is equal in this matter, that they need the help of humans and nonetheless do not rely on them; and nearby [Scripture] says, '... in order that you live and inherit the land.'"

It is sad that we live in a time when many people, even Jews, angle for every material possession they can squeeze from public coffers, and hope to influence public policy to enrich themselves. The place the nation and our mutual welfare at risk (destroy Jerusalem, not inheriting the land). The Jewish legal system seeks justice beyond all other goals. We live in an era in which the beauty of Jewish law has been lost most notably among those in Israel who regard themselves as its champions.