"Justice, justice you shall pursue." (Deut. 16:20)

The active pursuit of justice will be a direct result of the Courts handing down fair judgments. The reason the word "justice" is repeated is because there is a justice in our world and there is another justice in the Celestial Regions. The first kind is generally known as "dina malchuta dina" (literally, "the judgments of the kingdom are the judgments"), that the judgments pronounced in this world represent the divine name Ado-nai, i.e. the letters in the word "dina" rearranged. The justice in the Celestial Regions is anchored in the sefira of bina from which din/judgment, gevura emanates.

The justice in our world is the mystical dimension of the earth. The justice in the Celestial Regions is the mystical dimension of the World to Come. The promise of inheriting terrestrial Eretz Yisrael is tied to the pursuit of justice in this world…

Both Eretz Yisrael and the World to Come are gifts G‑d gave Israel that are gained through suffering. All such suffering originates in the sefira of gevura. Whenever the Sanhedrin bases its judgments on din Torah [strict legal interpretation of Torah Law], these result in sufferings, because Torah too is one of the three gifts we received from G‑d which we acquire only by some suffering.

Now, when we look at the words: "…in order that you shall live and inherit the Land" (ibid. 16:20) we note that the promise of inheriting terrestrial Eretz Yisrael is tied to the pursuit of justice in this world, whereas acquisition of our share of the World to Come. i.e. "…you shall live…", is tied to the pursuit of justice in the Celestial Spheres.

By administering din Torah, we become able to obtain all these three great gifts G‑d has bestowed on the Jewish people. The Sanhedrin is instructed by the Torah to hand down verdicts which are called "misphat tzedek" [literally, "just judgments"]. We are aware that "mishpat" originates in the sefira of tiferet, and that the combination of misphat and tzedek is equivalent to a merging of the sefirot of tiferet and malchut. G‑d Himself is inclines towards the attribute of Kindness…

What all this means in layman's language is that the Sanhedrin is to temper justice with mercy. This is accomplished when the judges try to arrive at some kind of compromise between the litigants. If they succeed in doing this they perform mishpat [related to the sefira of tiferet] and do not need to lean towards strict justice. When they do this, they lean towards the attribute of chesed [as does the sefira of tiferet]. In addition, we have a tradition that G‑d Himself is inclined towards the attribute of Kindness, chesed. This means that two different attributes or emanations respectively are involved in arriving at the preferable resolution of disagreements.

When the Torah legislates that the testimony of no fewer than two witnesses is required, this may symbolize that two different concepts are at work when deciding the outcome of litigation.

Some of our Kabbalists said that the reason G‑d is called "E-l da'ot / G‑d of knowledge" (Samuel I 2:3), is that the word "da'ot" is an allusion to "testimony", in Hebrew, "adut", the letters in both words being identical. It is a hint that two considerations are active when legal decisions are made.

[Translation and commentary by Eliyahu Munk.]