Shoftim - 2024

Chevre, this week’s parsha is Shoftim (שֹׁפְטִים). The parsha starts with the establishment of just courts and a little later we have a section that talks about setting a king for yourself. What I find truly interesting is that when Am Yisrael in Sefer Shmuel (Samuel) asks for a king and gets Shaul, it seems this is a negative thing. Shmuel tries to disuade Am Yisrael from setting a king over themselves. I would think that modern commentators explain Shoftim to be talking about setting up a government while Shmuel is talking about a dictator or an all powerful king.

In the world of AWS there are several layers of governance. There is the governance that a customer does for themselves. They use tools like SSO (Single Sign On), SCPs (Security Control Policies) and other guard rails to protect their accounts from malicious activity or even accidents. If a user doesn’t have permission to start the most expensive EC2 instance type, then they can’t do it accidentally.

And then there are governance and controls that are coming from the AWS level. This would be SES bounces that can cause the service to pause your access to sending email. There are access keys that get suspended when they are found posted on github. There are service limits to protect both the customer from moving too fast and the service from customers that start taking up to many resources.

With this understanding, the Torah portion is talking about self governance. Set judges over yourselves and set up a system of governance. Sefer Shmuel is talking about HaShem pushing a king onto Am Yisrael, at their request. Given that the kingship is coming from outside Am Yisrael, I suspect this is where Shmuel disapproved of the request to appoint a king.

Now that we are in Elul and getting ready for the High Holidays, Jewish tradition teaches “The King (HaShem) is in the field.” The idea being that HaShem is approachable even moreso this month. It’s a time of teshuvah (fixing ones actions) and preparing for the spiritual cleansing that comes with the holidays. Shabbat Shalom.