Intro: In our last shiurim, we focused on Yehoshua. Now, we will move onto Shoftim, and compare it to Yehoshua. We will also outline the two themes in this Perek which will continue throughout Sefer Shoftim.

1. Lack of leadership – manhigut

2. Failure of Am Israel to kick out the other nations in Israel (hitnachalut- settling the land) – which leads to them worshipping avodah zara, as they are then influenced by those nations.

3. Lack of unity among the shevatim - achdut. They act as separate nations and not as one cohesive unit.

Goals:

(1)     The chanichim will see the failures and lack of leadership of the Shoftim generation by contrasting the first two perakim of Shoftim to parallels in Sefer Yehoshua.

(2)     The chanichim will realize the issues created due to Bnei Israel not taking initiative to finish conquering the land and kick out the avodah zara worshipping nations.

Written by- Sarah Gordon

sygordon@gmail.com

Many of the ideas from these shiruim are adapted from the book "Shofet HaShoftim" by Yisroel Rozenson, published by Machon Herzog.

Machal Shiur #3: 

Intro: In our last shiurim, we focused on Yehoshua. Now, we will move onto Shoftim, and compare it to Yehoshua. We will also outline the two themes in this Perek which will continue throughout Sefer Shoftim.

1. Lack of leadership – manhigut

2. Failure of Am Israel to kick out the other nations in Israel (hitnachalut- settling the land) – which leads to them worshipping avodah zara, as they are then influenced by those nations.

3. Lack of unity among the shevatim - achdut. They act as separate nations and not as one cohesive unit.

Goals:

(1)     The chanichim will see the failures and lack of leadership of the Shoftim generation by contrasting the first two perakim of Shoftim to parallels in Sefer Yehoshua.

(2)     The chanichim will realize the issues created due to Bnei Israel not taking initiative to finish conquering the land and kick out the avodah zara worshipping nations.

Trigger: Have the chanichim look at the 1^st chapter of Shoftim and decide whether Bnei Israel are doing something good or bad. What is happening here? At first glance, it seems Bnei Israel are taking initiative to conquer the land. Seems good! Or is it… (Ominous music plays)

They are actually fulfilling exactly what Yehoshua told them to do back in his Sefer.

In Sefer Yehoshua on one hand it seems that the whole land was conquered:

Yehoshua 11:23: The whole land was conquered.

Yehoshua 21:41

But even though the land was conquered on a large scale, on the individual scale, now it’s up to each of the tribes to go through their portion or nachala and kick out all the avodah zara nations and make sure it’s conquered. (For example – in 1967 Israel conquered the whole Sinai, West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, Golan Heights… etc. But all that meant was that our soldiers ran through it and conquered it. It still wasn’t settled). Yehoshua led the people to conquer the whole land with Hashem’s help. But now to finish the job it’s up to the nations to take initiative. As we said in the 1^st shiur – Hashem helped us, but we also now have to take steps to fight and conquer the land on our own.

Background to Sefer Shoftim:

Already in Sefer Yehoshua it seems that Yehoshua is telling the people over and over again that they have to take initiative to finish conquering the land:

Yehoshua 18:3:

Yehoshua 23: 6-13:

There seems to be a contradiction – In the 1^st sources it seems G-d conquered the whole land and everything is all set. But then we see from Yehoshua’s message to the people that they have more work to do! The answer is what we already said – Hashem helped Am Israel take over the land on a grand scale – but now it’s up to Bnei Israel as leaders to take initiative and finish the job.

Therefore, Sefer Shoftim takes place after Yehoshua dies, and deals with whether we met our challenge to finish conquering the land or not.

Let’s look at the 1^st Perek of Shoftim. What words come up over and over again?

These tribes were not able to kick out the other nations.

Are any of these tribes doing a good job of trying, or taking initiative? It seems that Yehuda starts off well, and conquers a lot, and even tries to team up with another Shevet (Shimon) to get the job done, but as you go through the perek, the other tribes are failing miserably and not conquering any part of their land. At first, this seems good, Yehudah is being the leader and taking initiative. But in pasuk 21, we see Binyamin needs help and Yehuda is not there to help them!!!  No unity!!!

Look at the whole end of Perek Alef. What is happening here? No-one is kicking out the non-Jews from their lands. Look at the maps. Shevet Dan has to wander all the way up north because non-Jews kicked him out of his nachalah!!! They are either not kicking them out, or making deals with them and letting the stay if they pay taxes – bad!

Sefer Shoftim vs Sefer Yehoshua: A lack of Leadership

When Chazal talk about Sefer Shoftim they describe it in the following way:

תלמוד בבלי בבא בתרא טו ע"ב

איזה דור שכולו הבל? הוי אומר: זה דורו של שפוט השופטים

Bava Batra 15b: “Which is the generation of foolishness? The generation of the Shoftim.”

Why are Chazal coming down so negatively about this leadership period? We will see that this is because throughout Shoftim, all we will see is a lack of leadership on the side of the people.

The best proof for this is seeing how Sefer Shoftim begins in comparison to how Sefer Yehoshua begins. We will see a number of parallels. (In general, nothing in Tanakh is written randomly. If we can find good textual parallels between 2 sefarim or perakim, the narrator (Shmuel – who wrote Shoftim) is telling us to compare them to prove a point.).

Have the kids look at the 1^st pasuk and contrast it with Yehoshua 1:1. In both sefarim, the previous leader has died and a replacement is neccesary. Who is the new leader in each of the stories??? There is no clear leader in shoftim which leads to big problems.

Yehoshua: Yehoshua succeeds Moshe

Shoftim: Bnei Israel succeed Yehoshua. There is no one clear successor!

Ask the chanichim if this is good or bad that there is no one successor to Yehoshua? It seems it would be bad, because now there is no clear national leader, a theme that leads to no leader being able to unify the people and have them conquer the rest of Eretz Israel. It’s the community in charge. Imagine having no Rosh Mosh and the camp being run by Tzevet as a group. Why wouldn’t this work? Or would it work?

Other parallels that show Shoftim as failing where sefer Yehoshua succeeds (try to get the chanichim to figure these out by comparing the beginnings of both sefarim:

• In Yehoshua, Hashem approaches Yehoshua and tells him to conquer the land. In Shoftim, the people approach Hashem (with the urim vetumim) to try and conquer the land.

• A Malach comes to Yehoshua and tells him how to attack Yericho and conquer land, while a Malach comes to the Jews in Shoftim and gives them mussar about not doing their job and conquering the land. The Malach in Shoftim comes from Gilgal which was the launching off point for Yehoshua’s armies when conquering land, which isn’t happening here.

Machal Shiur #3: