Making Justice Real

The Jewish tradition has always been deeply concerned with the pursuit of justice (tzedek), as expressed so powerfully in the opening of Parshat Shoftim:

“Justice, justice shall you pursue (tzedek, tzedek tirdof), that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 16:20)

The rabbinic sages, who often paid close attention to the Torah’s choice of words and formulations, naturally found significance in the repetition of the word tzedek. Why does the Torah say tzedek, tzedek rather than simply tzedek? For the rabbis, this repetition was not merely stylistic; it was an invitation to probe more deeply into the nature of justice itself and express it in a concrete way:

In Sifrei Devarim, a midrashic collection from the period of the Mishnah, this repetition prompted the following interpretation:

“Tzedek, tzedek shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20) — on what basis do I know that [in a capital case], if a suspect emerged from trial with a verdict of innocence, they may not return him to be re-tried for guilt? The Teaching states: “Tzedek, tzedek shall you pursue.”

[In a civil suit,] if he emerged with a verdict of guilt, on what basis do I know that they may return him to be re-tried for innocence [in light of new evidence]? As it is said: “Tzedek, tzedek shall you pursue.” (Sifrei Devarim 154, Finkelstein ed., p. 199)

This midrash sees the doubling of the word tzedek as an emphatic call to ensure the fairest possible treatment of the litigant in a court of law.

A second interpretation likewise treats the doubling of tzedek as emphatic, but understands the verse as a call to pursue justice by bringing one’s case before the most qualified judges possible:

“Another word: ‘Tzedek, tzedek shall you pursue’ (Deut. 16:20)—pursue a court whose judgments are well-considered, like those of the court of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, or like those of the court of R. Eliezer.” (Ibid., p. 200)

A later midrash takes the significance of the verse a step further, connecting it to a much-vaunted legal concept that expresses a vital virtue of the Jewish legal system:

“‘Justice, justice shall you pursue’” [with justice repeated] two times: [Here is] a warning for judges who judge capital cases not to render judgment on the same day as the trial. Rather, let them suspend the judgment overnight… Everyone who judges a case with emet la-amito merits life in the world to come…(Midrash Tanhuma, Shoftim 8)

But what exactly is emet la-amito? The Tosafot (Shabbat 10a) define the term as “justice which is not deceptive.” In other words, judges must seek justice in such a way as to ensure that their decisions are true rather than false or misleading.

Without attempting to exhaust the many interpretations of this concept, I would like to consider two particularly interesting and significant understandings.

Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the Gaon of Vilna (18th century), sought to flesh out the Tosafot’s definition. He writes:

“Judges need to be experts also about the nature of the world so that their judgments will not be false or deceptive, for if they are not expert in these matters, but only in the laws of Torah, their decisions will not be emet la-amito, that is, even though the judgment may be legally right, it will not be fair… Therefore, a judge must be expert in both… that is to say, wise in matters of Torah and wise in matters of the world.” (Commentary on Proverbs 6:4)

The Gaon thus asserts that judging is not a purely objective exercise in which legal data are simply tallied and a single “correct” answer is mechanically derived. A judge must also understand the world in which the law operates and take into account the human circumstances to which the law is being applied. Legal correctness alone does not necessarily guarantee justice.

Rabbi Ephraim Yitzhak of Przemysl (Lithuania, 17th–18th century) offers a very different, but equally compelling, understanding of the term:

Since [it is possible for] a judge to refrain from judgment, claiming that even though it appears to him that he has made a judgment of truth, he still might have a concern that if this case were to come before a higher court, it might appear that he erred; if [this attitude prevailed], then no one would judge lest he err. That is why it says: “la-amito—according to his truth,” for no judge has other than his own truth, which will keep him from something he knows to be patently false. So, if the judge is sure that his judgment is true, he should not be concerned, for even if he erred, it is not his fault, since he assessed thoroughly [the law] as he saw it. (Mishnah Rishonah, commentary to Mishnah Peah 6:9, Vilna ed.)

This interpretation emphasizes a different quality necessary for the pursuit of justice: courage. Judges must be fearless in their commitment to what they honestly understand to be the truth. The possibility of error cannot become an excuse for refusing to judge. A judge must deliberate carefully, reach the best judgment possible, and then have the courage to stand behind it.

Justice Menahem Elon, former Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel and one of the foremost authorities on Jewish jurisprudence, elaborated and further developed this significant concept. Focusing on emet la-amito, Elon rejects two opposing approaches to law: legal formalism, according to which the law says x and therefore the answer must be x; and total subjectivism, according to which a judge rules exclusively according to his or her personal conscience.

Instead, Elon argues that emet la-amito requires a judge to consider “law + truth + judgment + circumstances.” A judge must take into account both the truth and the real situation as it appears through the eyes of the judge.

For Elon, the idea that justice without emet la-amito is not true justice constitutes a profound Jewish imperative. Justice requires not only an uncompromising search for truth, but also an abiding concern for what lies beyond the words of the law books: the circumstances of the case, the human beings involved, and the real-life consequences of the judgment. (see Menehem Elon, Maamad Haisha in multiple places)

In this sense, Jewish justice is not simply justice according to the law. It is justice informed by truth, judgment, circumstances, and humanity—a justice that seeks to go beyond the bare application of legal rules to arrive at what is, in the fullest sense, emet la-amito.