Why the Torah Says We Won't Need Police in the Messianic Era

Welcome to Words for the Journey: Life Lessons from Deuteronomy — Lesson V, Parshat Shoftim.

Did you know the Torah points to a future when we won’t need police — and that today’s “defund the police” movement might be picking up on that shift a little too early?

Parshat Shoftim opens with the command to appoint judges and officers “in all your gates,” and Rabbi Heschel Greenberg unpacks what that really means — for a courtroom, and for the gates of our own body and mind (eyes, ears, mouth) as we enter the month of Elul. Drawing on Isaiah’s prophecy of a future with “judges and advisers” but no officers, the Rebbe’s teaching on the difference between a judge and an adviser, and a string of true stories about the quietly corrupting power of bribery, this class works through seven traditional explanations for why the Torah repeats itself: “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof” — justice, justice shall you pursue.

🔎 In this video we explore:

Why judges and officers count as one mitzvah, not two What Isaiah’s prophecy of “judges and advisers” — with no officers — really means, and why “defunding the police” may be arriving before its time The difference between a judge and an adviser, and why Jewish education needs both Why the Torah calls us to post “judges” at the gates of our own eyes, ears, and mouth as Elul begins The true story of the Shach, who — without realizing it — ruled against his own book once he had a personal stake in the case Why even a bribe slipped secretly into a rabbi’s pocket, without his knowledge, can bend his judgment Seven answers to why the Torah repeats “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof” Why a human rabbi’s sensitivity — like the Beis HaLevi’s — can’t be replaced by AI

📚 Sources discussed: Parshat Shoftim (Devarim), Rashi, Talmud, Isaiah’s prophecy, teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Shach (Rabbi Shabsi Kohen), the Baal Shem Tov, Rav Sherira Gaon, the Beis HaLevi