In a 1996 lecture on Exodus 17, Dennis Prager says: What isn’t listed? Even hinted at for what a judge in Israel ought to be?
What’s missing is loving and compassionate. Nothing about that is mentioned.
The Torah has words for that. It’s not like I’m using modern words. God is constantly described as a God of enormous compassion.
Being compassionate and loving in judgment undermines being a good judge.
If I am compassionate to a black student [through affirmative action] then I am unjust to a non-black student.
Compassion subverts justice, but not when done personally.
I’d rather be known when I die, Dennis was very compassionate, than Dennis was very just, but society won’t survive if its justices are known as very compassionate.
My favorite statement from the New Testament is that truth will set you free. It does. It also makes you lonely.
