A Thought on Parshas Shoftim

"...Shoftim v'shotrim ti'ten lecha b'kol sha'arecha..." "...Judges and officers you shall appoint in all your gates..." (16:8) In the land of Israel in earlier holier times, the judges of the Torah courts ruled with utter authority. The criteria for selecting judges were vast and demanding. In contrast, those who resided outside of Israel were not eligible to serve as judges with that same authority. The Talmud assigned lesser authority to the learned men of the gola - the Diaspora. Later sages disputed the range and scope of authority granted to such judges. A question which arose among the Rishonim in Europe was how to deal with the masor - one who turned on his fellow Jew and caused him unsanctioned financial losses. In the times of the Talmud, this matter had been debated as well, yet the matter remained unresolved even ten centuries later. Rabbeinu Chananel ruled that Diaspora courts could not rule on penalizing the masor for being a catalyst to another's loss. Meanwhile, Rav Hai Gaon ruled that if the victim would take an oath that his loss was caused by the masor, then the masor could be ordered to pay half of the damages. Other Gaonim held that if one could prove that he had sustained a major loss, the Diaspora courts were entitled to rule under the principle of "dina d'garmi" - causing indirect damage. Rabbeinu Tam, the foremost French authority of the Tosafos school, disagreed, considering garmi and knas'os (levied fines) beyond the scope of judges presiding outside of Israel. Rabbeinu Avigdor introduced a novel level of legislation: he asserted that the Diaspora courts were authorized to place the masor in nidui - banning him from further community affiliation, then appointing seven "Tuvei Ha'Ir" - prominent citizens - to assess the damage incurred and to extract payment for this from the masor. This provided a mechanism for collection in those cases which were beyond the authority of those courts. Rabbeinu Avigdor then lines up all of the authorities who supported this ruling. His list illuminates the world of Torah during the 13th century. He writes that using the tool of nidui was approved by Rabbeinu Tam, Rabbeinu Yitzchak, Rabbeinu Yitzchak ben Avraham, "the Elders of Elsor" (near Bordeaux and Alsace), the Rabbis of Allemagne (Provence), all of the Rabbis of France, Champagne, Anjou and Poitou (French provinces), and Rabbeinu Simcha of Speyer, who permitted using this banishment as a means of recovering one's losses through the treachery of the masor. He then added that virtually all of France's rabbis followed this practice, as had Rabbeinu Yitzchak of Fez (the Rif), citing the "two great Babylonian academies" who held that whereas one cannot rule on "penalty" judgements in the Diaspora, a Rabbinic court may excommunicate a non-compliant aggressor until he compensates his victim, or until he agrees to go to Israel to have the matter heard in court there. This helps us understand the meaning of our verse "appoint both judges and officers in all your gates" - when in exile where we have no full judges in our gates, we still can appoint officers to assure that justice is not averted. Thus ruled Rabbeinu Avigdor the Posek. Good Shabbos. D Fox