לא תזבח לה' אלוקיך צאן ובקר, “You shall not slaughter for the Lord your G’d an ox or lamb (that is blemished);” after having told the people that erecting an asherah or pillar, even in honour of Hashem is prohibited, Moses warns now that when offering animal sacrifices on the altar designated for this, the animals used must be free from any kind of blemish.

כי ימצא בקרבך, “if there will be found in your midst,” Nachmanides comments that it is commonplace for the Torah, whenever addressing the laws known as משפטים, laws dealing with inter-personal relations, that the first item on the list that follows always deals with idolatry or with those practicing it.

איש או אשה, “a man or a woman, etc.” Seeing that it is part of the psyche of women to tend to inadvertently commit idolatrous acts by consulting soothsayers, or generally turning to people who claim to know the future, they tend to be impressed by people performing acts that demonstrate their extra-sensory capabilities. We find Biblical proof of this in Jeremiah, chapter 44.15 and onwards In the Sifri the reason for the separate mention of man and woman in this verse is explained as due to the fact that when speaking about the עיר הנדחת, Deut. 13,14, the Torah had described the guilty persons as אנשים, men, to indicate that if the instigator had been a woman the whole legislation of a city that had allowed itself to be seduced does not apply, the Torah had to emphasise that in the case of individual idolaters no difference is made between the punishment for men and women.

והוגד לך ושמעת, “and you have been informed, and you will hear, etc.” The apparent repetition of the same thought means that whenever and wherever this accusation is brought to your attention you must immediately commence an investigation. As soon as you establish that the rumours you have heard are factual, you have to lead the guilty party to his or her place of execution where you will stone the guilty party to death.

נעשתה התועבה הזאת בישראל, “this abominable thing has indeed been carried out in (the land of) Israel;” the wording suggests that this legislation also applies in the Diaspora, seeing the word בקרבך which is used in the legislation of עיר הנדחת in conjunction with the word תועבה has been omitted here. The word בישראל at the end of this verse makes it clear that such conduct cannot be ignored in any Jewish community wherever it is located.

על פי שנים עדים, “based on the testimony of not fewer than two eye-witnesses;” Ibn Ezra explains that seeing the words והוגד לך ושמעת in verse 4 sound as if the first verse speaks about information obtained clandestinely, whereas the word ושמעת refers to openly received information, but not information by eye-witnesses, etc., I might have concluded from the wording in verse 5 וסקלתם באבנים ומת, “you shall stone the party in question to death,” that this is sufficient to convict such people. The Torah had to state that no matter what, without two reliable eye-witnesses against the accused no conviction, and certainly no execution can take place. Rav Saadyah gaon explains the words על פי שנים עדים או על פי שלשה עדים to mean that the testimony of the two witnesses must be submitted to no fewer than three judges. [This has not been found in Rav Saadyah gaon’s writings, and in my edition of Ibn Ezra, he does not attribute it to him, but to some unnamed scholars. Ed.] Nachmanides questions the validity of such an interpretation seeing that the text does not remotely refer to the people who are supposed to accept this testimony and to act upon it. Besides, seeing that the Torah discusses capital offences, we have a rule that no court composed of fewer than 23 judges may deal with cases involving capital punishment. The plain meaning of the text, according to Nachmanides, is that if there are no more than 2 eye witnesses to the offence mentioned, this suffices to hand down a death penalty, provided the testimony of the two witnesses is above reproach. Some commentators say that the meaning of the verse is that if one set of two witnesses contradicts what a set of three witnesses testifies, two of the testimonies cancel each other out and the remaining witness is decisive. This works either in favour of the accused or against him or her..

דברי ריבות בשעריך, “matters of dispute in your respective cities;” Rashi understands this verse not as referring to strife of a secular nature, but to disagreements amongst Torah scholars on how to rule in a matter brought to them for a binding decision. One group of sages tends to declare the object under discussion as ritually pure, whereas the other group disagrees. Nachmanides writes that according to the plain meaning of the text the words בין דם לדם, refer to murder that has been committed, and there is a disagreement as to who is guilty of committing it. The words בין דין לדין refer to disputes involving money, or money due as compensation. The words בין נגע לנגע refer to injuries of different kinds caused to people or to the status of houses afflicted with what appears to be tzoraat. Finally, the words דברי ריבות בשעריך refer to any kind of disagreement between scholars or laymen. The phraseology, i.e. the examples, quoted in the text, has been chosen on the basis of what occurs most frequently. Disputes involving human relations and their belongings are much more frequent than disputes involving finer points of religious ritual. This is why Moses concludes with reminding the people that all of these disputes must be resolved, even by the highest tribunal, on the basis of the revealed law of Hashem, the Torah, and the judges must show that they have ruled on the basis of Torah law.

ימין או שמאל, “to the right or to the left.” Rashi says that even if the ruling is such that it appears what the man in the street knows to be right as being left, and vice versa, i.e. that you are convinced that the decision is flawed, you must accept their decision and conduct yourself in accordance with it. You cannot, because of your conscience, say that you refuse to eat a piece of חלב, fat tissue forbidden on pain of the Karet penalty, that you are certain is such in spite of the Supreme Court’s decision to the contrary. The following is how Nachmanides elaborates on the words of Rashi. It was necessary for Moses to spell this out, seeing that the Torah was given to the people as a written document, and it is common knowledge that not a single letter in that document will ever be changed or tampered with. If it were possible to do that, we would soon have numerous such books, each claiming to be the original Torah. This is why in that same written Torah we needed to have a verse explaining the absolute authority of the leading scholars of the nation to interpret the Torah according to approved guidelines. It is not necessary for these Torah scholars to have received that particular piece of legislation, or interpretation, from Moses directly. Basically, Moses teaches that the Torah that will be taught to us after his death, will be taught to us on the basis of how these scholars understood and interpreted it. It is irrelevant if minor scholars, or learned individuals are convinced that the Supreme Court had erred in a specific ruling.

ואמרת אשימה עלי מלך, “and you will say: “I will appoint a king as ruler over myself;” Nachmanides writes that according to the opinion of our sages (Sanhedrin 20*)* what sounds here as optional, depending on vox populi, is in fact one of the basic 613 commandments. It is one of the three commandments that would not become operational until after the people were firmly established in the land. In that respect it is similar to the legislation about making a railing on top of the roof of your house, (Deut. 22,80) a commandment that can also not be fulfilled until the conditions are ripe. The reason why Moses prefaces this commandment with the words: ואמרת, “when you will say,” is that the request to appoint a king must originate with the people, and they in turn have to submit it to the ruling authority at that time, the High Court. Nachmanides sees in this verse an allusion to future developments, when the people came to the prophet Samuel and requested that he appoint a king over them. (Samuel I chapter 8) [The fact that such a request for central government did not surface for well over 400 years after Joshua’s conquest of the land, says something about the traditional disinclination of the Jewish people to be governed. Ed.]

אשר יבחר ה' אלוקיך בו, “whom the Lord your G’d will choose.” According to numerous commentators the meaning is that G’d will indicate His choice of whom He favours as king, through one of His prophets, or, in the absence of such, through the response received by the High Priest when enquiring from Hashem through the urim vetumim in his breastplate. Nachmanides questions this approach, asking that if it were correct, why did Moses specifically warn against the appointment of a gentile as king, when clearly, such an appointment would be thwarted by Divine interference? He answers that our sages discovered in this verse also a hidden clause. The words שום תשים עליך מלך, “you shall surely set a king over yourself,” imply that it is within your power, politically speaking, to make that choice without external interference. When such conditions exist G’d needs to approve the appointment of such a king before he begins his reign. Such a king must have been born as a Jew. The word יבחר is an allusion to the people whom G’d has “chosen,” as opposed to the people whom G’d “hates.” [The word “hates,” used by Nachmanides must be understood in the same sense as Leah used it when she described herself as “hated” by her husband Yaakov. (Genesis 29,33) Ed.] Under no circumstances, however, must you appoint a gentile as king over you. According to the plain meaning of the text, the פשט, seeing that any king ruling over any nation does so only as long as I, Hashem, approve, you may appoint a king over yourselves as this is part of the fate of the Jewish people as it has been decreed by heaven. [If I understand correctly, the inference is from the indirect אשר יבחר, “that He will choose,” instead of the direct speech אשר תבחר, “that you will choose.” Ed.] Even when we think we do the choosing, in the final analysis, G’d has done the choosing in His capacity as “King of Kings.” However, there is also included here a warning not to crown gentile king, ever.

רק לא ירבה לו סוסים, “only he shall not acquire for himself too many horses, etc.” The meaning of the restrictive word רק is inserted to teach that although by adopting the monarchy as your mode of government, something which makes you more like the nations of the world, and I have given My approval, there are certain tools used by monarchs the world over to reinforce their power that such a Jewish king must not use. They are: 1) not to amass too many horses. It is a boast of gentile kings to view their military strength in the number of horses and chariots they own. Nachmanides questions this rationale, basing himself on the Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 10,9) in which possible return by Jews to Egypt is discussed and the prevailing view is that whereas it is forbidden for Jews to settle in Egypt, if they visit there as part of their business dealings this is quite in order. Therefore, if the king sends a delegation to Egypt to acquire horses, this is viewed as a commercial activity, and is permitted. He adds further, it is possible to explain our verse as a warning for the king not to amass too many horses even if they have been born and bred in the land of Israel. The definition of the words דרך סחורה, “a commercial transaction,” in Nachmanides’ view, means that the king must not acquire these horses because he considers himself armed superbly by owning a cavalry, but that the purpose in acquiring them is not for war but for peaceful commercial pursuits. The king’s actions must reflect that he places his trust in Hashem, not in man-made defensive or offensive weaponry. Moses follows the warning about the amassing of horses by the king, by a warning not to lead his people back to Egypt (already mentioned in Exodus 14,13), i.e. he is not to employ Egyptian servants at his court, in his army. The thrust of the whole paragraph is that Jews, who when first in Egypt were discouraged by Joseph to serve as officers in Pharaoh’s army, should retain their primary vocations, just as then they had been cattle-herders, now they would become farmers on their own land.

למען הרבות סוס, “in order to amass quantities of horses.” In Kings I 9,19 the prophet Jeremiah already records that even a wise king such as Solomon ignored this warning of the Torah. He had Egyptian trainers living in the cities specially built for training cavalry horses and did not draft Jews for the military, although he employed them as “forced labour” to work in the quarries in Lebanon to hew and transport the stones needed for building the Temple.

וה' אמר לכם, “seeing that Hashem has already told you., etc.,” the word אמר, though written in the past tense here, must be understood as if it had been written in the present tense. Until permission had been given by G’d to appoint a king, the Israelites could not possibly have been led back to Egypt by such a king. Another way of understanding our verse is that Moses now reveals what G’d had already told him a long time ago, but seeing that it had not been relevant, Moses had not yet told the people about that. According to our sages (Jerusalem Talmud, Sukkah 5,1) the reason for this prohibition is that both the Egyptians and the Canaanites were extremely anti G’d the Creator, in their whole religious mores, as well as in their sexually perverted values. (Compare Leviticus 18,2) There was little fear that the Israelites would copy the Canaanites, seeing they were about to wipe out those tribes. This left the Egyptians as a potentially very bad cultural influence. G’d therefore prohibited close relations between our two nations, something that would be bound to develop if Jews were allowed to settle there.

והיתה עמו, “It shall be with him, constantly;” the subject is the Torah scroll just mentioned.”

לבלתי רום לבבו, “so that his heart does not become haughty;” here the Torah zeroes in on the negative virtue called pride, arrogance, haughtiness. By warning the King not to fall victim to such feelings, we commoners must surely learn that we are included in that warning, as we have far less to tempt us to display or harbour such feelings of superiority.