Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] We know that in America and most of Western countries, there are three branches of the government.
[00:00:08] There is legislative like Senate, we have judiciary, which is courts, and we have executive, which is the president.
[00:00:19] How did government work in the ancient Israel?
[00:00:26] Well, first of all, when Jews received the Torah, for 40 years they were traveling through the desert.
[00:00:33] Then when they came into the land of Israel, for almost five centuries, they did not have a king.
[00:00:41] The first king, Sha', Ul, came only later and king's role was actually also limited.
[00:00:50] So this is how it worked.
[00:00:53] Out of the three branches of the government that we have here in the Torah. I mean in the Jewish state of old that existed back then, the legislative part, the Torah itself took care of the laws were given by God. So we didn't need a body that would make laws, but we had a judiciary system.
[00:01:19] And they were courts, they were batey din courthouses.
[00:01:24] And when Jews entered the land of Israel, for first 400 plus years, the main rulership of the country was by the judges, because they would rule.
[00:01:37] And interestingly enough, that the state of Israel back then was more like the United States of America rather than one unified country. The US Was originally built as the United States of America, as the name implies, as 50 separate states.
[00:01:56] It is only later that the federal power started growing more and more and we are now morphed into one country.
[00:02:02] But originally the idea was we will have 50 independent states.
[00:02:07] So in Israel we had 12 independent states of Israel. Each tribe had their own territory and each tribe had their own prince that was in charge.
[00:02:18] And as a federal power, there were only judges.
[00:02:23] And judges were ruling based on the Torah law.
[00:02:28] And the governors or princes of every tribe were ruling in practical matters in their jurisdiction.
[00:02:38] So in other words, there was the executive branch, which was local in every state, for every tribe.
[00:02:46] And the judiciary, there were local courts, and then there were state courts, and then there were federal courts and they all worked together.
[00:02:56] Then the Jews came to God and they asked him for a king.
[00:03:00] This is how King Sha' Ul was installed. And he took upon himself just the executive part.
[00:03:08] He was like the President of the US or like the Prime Minister of Israel, he had the executive role, which meant he was building roads, he was in charge of defense, industry, he was making sure that there was a sufficient infrastructure in the country.
[00:03:25] But since he was living as a whole country according to the Torah laws, and the courts were there to make sure that everybody was following these laws.
[00:03:38] And that's why in every generation since Jews came to Israel, there was a person who was in Charge of the Torah learning. He was the head of the Bed Din. He was the Torah scholar of that generation.
[00:03:55] And all of the courts were set up under him.
[00:04:00] And then separately from that, Jews also had a position of prophets. Now, prophets did not have any enforcement power, a king or the court system or a governor of a state. They had police on their side. Prophets did not have any police, any army. Their job was to. To teach people and to inspire people.
[00:04:26] That's why every generation, the prophet.
[00:04:29] So prophet was not really a part of any branch of the government, even though each generation had the main prophet.
[00:04:38] And we see an interesting thing that when the Torah was first given, we had one person who received the Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu.
[00:04:49] And he was the teacher of the Torah, hence name Rabbeinu. Rabbeinu means our teacher.
[00:04:55] By the way, this is how we know that Moshe Rabbeinu was a Sephardi. If he would be an Ashkenazi, his name would be Rabinovitch, not Rabbeinu. This was a joke.
[00:05:05] So Moshe Rabbeinu was the original Torah scholar, Torah teacher and the king.
[00:05:13] He combined in himself these both roles.
[00:05:18] And interesting enough, when he was passing away, he was asking God for his son to take him over. We know that Moshe Ben had two sons, but they were not known as the great Torah scholars that Moshe was himself.
[00:05:35] Nevertheless, Moshe was asking God for one of them to be appointed as his successor.
[00:05:41] And God refused.
[00:05:43] God appointed Yahushua Bin Nun, his student, to be his successor.
[00:05:47] So why is that? Why did Moshe make this seemingly mistake by thinking that his son, if he knew his son, would not be the great of a Torah scholar as he was, then why would he be asking God to appoint him as his successor?
[00:06:02] So this was because Moshe Rabbeidu knew that he had a dual role.
[00:06:08] He was the Torah teacher, the scholar, and he was a king. He thought that possibly after his passing, this dual role will be split into two people. And one person will be in charge of the executive branch. One person will be in charge of the judiciary branch.
[00:06:27] And in this case, he understood that his son cannot be in charge of the judiciary. He cannot be a Torah scholar. But the executive branch he thought he could run. He was very capable. But God wanted this dual role in one person to be kept for one more generation.
[00:06:46] And Joshua Yahshua Ben Nun was the one who was appointed Moishe's successor. And he had his dual role as well. But after Joshua, since Jews went into the land of Israel and settled in land of Israel, his dual role was split. And in every generation we had separate person in charge of the practical matters and separate people in charge of the judiciary.
