JULY 15 • 2021 | 35

A

t the beginning of 
D’varim, Moses 
reviews the history of 
the Israelites’ experience in the 
wilderness, beginning with the 
appointment of leaders through-
out the people, 
heads of thou-
sands, hundreds, 
fifties and tens. He 
continues:
“
And I charged 
your judges at that 
time, ‘Hear the 
disputes between 
your people and judge fairly, 
whether the case is between two 
Israelites or between an Israelite 
and a foreigner residing among 
you. Do not show partiality in 
judging; hear both small and 

great alike. Do not be afraid of 
anyone, for judgment belongs to 
God. Bring me any case too hard 
for you, and I will hear it.
” (Deut. 
1:16-17)
Thus at the outset of the 
book in which he summarized 
the entire history of Israel and 
its destiny as a holy people, 
he already gave priority to 
the administration of justice: 
Something he would memorably 
summarize in a later chapter 
(16:20) in the words, “Justice, 
justice, shall you pursue.
” 
The words for justice, tzedek 
and mishpat, are repeated, recur-
ring themes of the book. The 
root tz-d-k appears 18 times in 
D’varim; the root sh-f-t, 48 times.
Justice has seemed, throughout 

the generations, to lie at the beat-
ing heart of Jewish faith. Albert 
Einstein memorably spoke of 
“the pursuit of knowledge for 
its own sake, an almost fanatical 
love of justice and the desire for 
personal independence — these 
are the features of the Jewish tra-
dition which make me thank my 
lucky stars that I belong to it.
”
In the course of a television 
program I made for the BBC, 
I asked Hazel Cosgrove, the 
first woman to be appointed 
as a judge in Scotland and an 
active member of the Edinburgh 
Jewish community, what had 
led her to choose law as a career, 
she replied as if it was self-evi-
dent, “Because Judaism teaches: 
Justice, justice shall you pursue.
”

One of the great Jewish 
lawyers of our time, Alan 
Dershowitz, wrote a book about 
Abraham, whom he sees as the 
first Jewish lawyer: “the patriarch 
of the legal profession: a defense 
lawyer for the damned who is 
willing to risk everything, even 
the wrath of God, in defense of 
his clients,
” the founder not just 
of monotheism but of a long 
line of Jewish lawyers [Abraham: 
The World’s First (But Certainly 
Not the Last) Jewish Lawyer, 
Schocken, 2015].
Dershowitz gives a vivid 
description of Abraham’s prayer 
on behalf of the people of Sodom 
(“Shall the Judge of all the earth 
not do justice?”) as a courtroom 
drama, with Abraham acting 

Why Are There So 
Many Jewish Lawyers?

continued on page 36

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

