Engaging our children in the parsha

The following are some suggestions of ideas for conversations with our children by the Shabbos meals. The key here is to get the children involved through debate and stimulation.

The Jewish King

In the olden days, every country would have a king. What was the function and purpose of a king? A king was seen as the leader. He was the one to protect the country from attack and would lead the army to invade other countries. He decided the laws of the land and he was in charge of the people. You could therefore end up with a cruel king who would be horrible to the people or a nice king you would be kind. History tells us that kings was all about having power. In other words, it is really a dictatorship. People do not have a vote to decide who is the king. Rather it is the strongest person that gets the position.

How does this compare to a Jewish King discussed in Parshas Shoftim? The Jewish King must be chosen through the Kohen Godol with the Urim Vitumim. This means that the chose of king is determined by Hashem. (Although later on in history with the split up of the Jews under two kingdoms, Yisroel and Yehuda, it became like the other non-Jewish Kings.) This is seen in the choosing of King Shaul and later on with Dovid. The criteria for a Jewish King is not his physical prowess but rather his spiritual status. A Jewish King had to be constantly accompanied with a copy of the Torah to remind him that ultimately, despite his high position, he is not in charge.

These Jewish Kings shows the true qualities required. Shaul ran away from being selected as king and Dovid was the one shunned by his family. Yet, they were the ones chosen as kings. People see the outside while Hashem looks to the inner qualities.

Knowing the future?

How would you like to know the future? Will you be rich? Will anything bad happen to you? Naturally we want to be in control and want to know what lies in store for us in the future. What does the Torah tell us about this? In Parshas Shoftim it tells us not to copy the acts of the gentile nations when entering Eretz Yisroel. But why not? What alternative do we have?

Hashem wants us ideally to go through live and deal with its challenges as we progress. If we would know what will happen, how would it effect our lives? How would our life look knowing what lies in store for us? Imagine a rich man is told all his wealth will be taken away and given to his neighbour. What would he do about it? Would he now live a happy life? Take a look and see what happened in the famous story of Yosef Moikir Shabbos how this very incident changed his life and made him an unhappy man. Try and picture how this man would have lived his life had he not known about this. One thing for sure is that he would have led a much happier life without the worry and thinking the whole time about this fact and trying to do things to prevent it. Knowing the future will almost always make a person live a more miserable life. However, this alone should not be the reason why not to find out the future. The real reason is because we believe that Hashem knows better and He told us not to do so.

The question is how then can we be told to go to the Novi, prophet, for future decisions? How could the Jews ask the Urim Vitumim whether or not to go into battle? How does this go together with living with temimus, not trying to find out the future? Perhaps the difference lies in the general picture of the community needs and for personal needs…