Chevre, this week’s parsha is Shoftim (שופטים). This week’s idea came from Becky Weiss. Thank you. At the very end of the parsha we have the Egel Arufah. This is the case where a corpse is found in the wilderness between 2 cities. The elders from the closest city are to bring a heifer that has done no work to a location that cannot be used for work and they will kill the heifer in a specific manner. The idea here is that we take responsibility for the people within our sphere of influence and there is no location where someone should not feel responsibility.

In the cloud, we have the shared responsibility model. There is a clear delineation between who is responsible for what. This may change based on the service, but it is clear where the line is drawn. When I used to run on-prem data centers, there was a clear “demarc” that was the handoff point for phone circuits where the phone company was responsible up to the “demarc” and the local IT or networking folks took it on from there.

With the demarcs and the shared responsibility model, that doesn’t mean that there is an occassional finger pointing session. The hope and goal is that those finger pointing episodes will be minimal. And often even if the problem falls on the customer’s side of the demarc, professionals will often assist and offer their advise to folks having problems.

In the case of the corpse, the elders are taking responsiblity and can use this as a reminder that they should take care of everyone within their area. May we all help each other become better.

Shabbat Shalom