Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof
Last Friday, August 29th, Lawyer’s Day was commemorated in Argentina.
We remember this date in honor of Juan Bautista Alberdi, Argentine lawyer, politician, economist, diplomat and writer, one of the highest exponents of the ideas of freedom and justice of our country, who set the foundations of what later became the Argentine Constitution of 1853, a document recognized at its time as emblematic for its avant-garde ideas throughout Latin America.
Alberdi said that “The law, the Constitution, the government, are empty words… if they are not reduced to facts by the hand of the judge. …. He makes it wise or wicked.”
He also considered that judges should be “honest, independent and efficient”, “guardians of legal security in society”
On this same Shabbat we read Shoftim, Judges, the weekly portion in which Moses gives instructions to the People about the system of justice that will govern daily life thereafter.
It instructs the people to appoint judges and police officers and in so doing to ensure that they administer an honest trial for the people. That they should not twist justice and should not give special consideration to anyone, nor take bribes, for bribery makes the wise blind and perverts the words of the righteous.
Both of them, Moises and Alberdi, fought for the division of powers, for systems of checks and balances, combat corruption, and mainly made it clear that rulers must be subject to the Law, being an example of honorability and rectitude for their people.
Moses indicates that the King, anticipating that the People would ask for a secular King upon entering the Land of Israel, was to have a copy of the Torah as the highest Law at his side permanently and was to read it every day to ensure that he did not feel superior to the rest of the men and women under his ruling.
Albedi puts the Constitution above the rulers, stating that the worst thing about despotism is not its harshness, but its inconsistency, and only the Constitution is immutable. And he goes a step further to illustrate the concept by saying that the omnipotence of the State is the negation of individual freedom.
I imagine the pain and sadness that both Moisés and Alberdi must feel, watching the current reality of the people to whom they wanted to leave a legacy of rectitude, honorability and justice.
The current actions of the rulers here and there leave us extremely unprotected and I ask myself day after day, what is he way out?
Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof. Justice, Justice you will pursue, the Torah tells us this very week.
I wish for ourselves, here and there, the wisdom and strength to find the way back to a social and political life that honors the legacy and teaching of the wise masters we once had.
Vicky Ludmer
August 2025 – Elul 5785