Parshas Shoftim: Protect Unborn Babies in Your Neighborhood

In our Torah portion this week, Shoftim: Deuteronomy (Devarim) 16:18 - 21:9, Moses lays out the rules for a functional and holy society in the Land of Israel. He talks of  justice and its application by judges and legislators, kings, priests, prophets and military commanders.

Judge Your Judges

Moses points out the character flaws and actions that destroy society and that must be monitored and addressed by righteous authorities. He mentions compromised standards, bribery, ill-advised dependency on money and reputation, conflicts of interest, scams, emotional arguments, situational ethics, intellectual conceit, personal ambition, job insecurity and cowardice. 

He takes great pains to remind the people that successful and ongoing possession of the Holy Land depends upon holy determinations by judicial authorities who rely on Torah based moral law when developing national policy and adjudicating conflicts. 

Judges and other authorities who preside over us must study Torah daily and rule by sound, life sustaining principles that protect the innocent and hold accountable the guilty. Politically motivated and self interested judges must be identified and replaced lest they cause great harm and suffering to individuals and communities.

Shedding Innocent Blood

This portion focuses much attention on protecting innocent human life. The first reference in chapter 18 prohibits shedding the innocent blood of children. There must not be among you anyone who passes his son or daughter through fire,......

Chapter 19 calls for creating sanctuary cities to protect those innocent of first degree murder from unjust execution by avenging family members of the slain. Only after a fair trial where the accused is found guilty of murder is that man delivered into the hands of the family. 

This biblical precedent provides the basis of The Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement that truly protects innocent unborn babies from lethal attacks by abortion minded parents and providers.  https://sanctuarycitiesfortheunborn.com

Chapter 20 instructs generals to first offer peace to a city before attacking it in order to save innocent lives. If the city officials decline the offer of peace, then the attack proceeds and all the women and children are spared. The only exception is for cities on God's hit list of nations that practice child sacrifice: the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, These places and all of the inhabitants must be eradicated so that they cannot infect Israel with their barbaric disrespect for life and the Almighty.

Our Neighbor's Life is Our Responsibility

The portion closes with an explanation of Eglah arufah. This refers to a blameless calf that is sacrificed by villagers as atonement for shedding innocent blood by failing to provide safe passage and provision for an unidentified person found in the local vicinity murdered by an unknown assailant.  

Eglah arufah means that all the people in the community are responsible for preventing the killing of an innocent person that occurs in their vicinity. This moral guideline overrides the idea of libertarian noninterference when it comes to intentionally inflicting lethal injury upon innocent people.

We are actually commanded and held responsible for keeping our blameless neighbors and kinsmen safe from murdering predators. We must atone if we fail in our moral duty. No longer do we sacrifice an animal. Instead, we sacrifice our arguments and activism that enable barbaric destruction of innocent human life.

This obligation includes protecting innocent children in the womb in our neighborhoods from intentional destruction through abortion homicide. We cannot simply ignore the criminal activities of the abortion industry, which corrupt authorities exempt from oversight and investigation.

Israel Consoled

The Haftorah this week is the fourth Haftorah of consolation between the 9th of Av and the Jewish New Year. This week, Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 51:12 - 52:12, the prophet lifts spirits depressed by folly and sin. Isaiah promises joy and song in God's promised redemption when Israel repents. A renewed Jerusalem existing only to praise God awaits us. 

Shoftim Lessons

How easily we discard Torah fundamentals and a joyous future in favor of the false promises of social justice and laws that promote a death culture. Modern governance around the globe now suffers from all the ills Moses warned against. Corrupted judges, compromised heads of state, politicians and faith leaders, and nefarious social media influencers hold sway over almost every area of our lives. Their attitudes infect our communities with destructive ideas just as the Canaanite attitudes infected the Israelite tribes.

Lies get repeated over and over again. Slander and false witness supplant the voice of conscious and common sense. We are pawns in a dangerous game of life and death, manipulated to perpetuate and normalize ideas abhorrent to God.

So far have these deceptions progressed that pre-born babies bear the indignity of being dehumanized and blamed, accused and legally tortured to death for society's ills, the shortcomings of their parents, and the failure of our community leaders to provide opportunities that support women who are coerced and frightened into abortion.

Each of us has a unique obligation in the effort to save the lives and destinies of our beloved pre-born children. As we approach the New Year and its promise of a renewed covenant with our Heavenly Father, Isaiah 52:9 reminds us that our efforts have guaranteed results. "Burst out in song, sing together, O ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has consoled His people; He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has revealed His holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God."

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May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.

Cecily Routman

Cecily Routman is the founder and president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation. She opposes abortion homicide in general and among Jews in particular and laments secular policy making in Israel that results in loss of Jewish life and delays the messianic redemption. Cecily envisions a Torah based holy Land of Israel and a world that respects the life of every human being from conception.

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