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Judge and Judgment
Translated and annotated by Eliyahu
Munk.
...for the judgment is G-d's. (Deut. 1:17)
The words "for the judgment is G-d's" (Deut. 1:17)
emphasize the connection between judge and justice. The judge receives his
input, inspiration from the attribute of gevura, also known as the
attribute of Justice. This is the reason why the Judge of the universe is
known as Elo-him, seeing He draws on that emanation gevura,
situated on the left side of the diagram of the sefirot. Seeing that G-d,
in the attribute of Elo-him, is described by Asaph as both G-d and judge
(Psalms 82:1), it is not surprising that the attribute Elo-him is applied
by the Torah to judges who perform G-d's work.  | | " The face of the ox was on the left...." | | |
Then the Torah speaks of "...the causes of both
parties shall come before G-d" (Ex. 22:8), the meaning is not that the dispute
has to be submitted to G-d, but that it be submitted to mortal judges. Seeing
the judge performs G-d's function, he is accorded this title. If such title is
accorded to man, on occasion, it is most certainly also accorded to angles who,
by definition, always perform G-d's work as his agents. Both the angels and the
mortal judges receive their input from the attribute of Justice, the sefira
of gevura.
You should appreciate that seeing the sefira
is situated on the left side of the diagram of the sefirot, as is known
from Ezekiel 1:10: "...and the face of the ox was on the left [of the angelic
creatures]." The Great Sanhedrin was also known as "navel" (as in Song of Songs
7:3); Rashi explains that its seat was at the navel of the earth - in the
center, at the Temple. The office where the deliberations were held was known as
"Lishkat Hagazit" [literally, the "office of cutting"], i.e. where
definitive judgments were made, where after deliberations the judgment became
[in colloquial terms] "cut and dried". [Selected from the seven-volume English edition of "The
Torah Commentary of Rebbeinu Bachya".]
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