In our parsha, Shoftim, the Torah writes about the legal equality of individuals:  

“You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice.  You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just.  Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that your God is giving you.”

Not only are individuals to be treated equally under the law, but precautions are taken so even the King will be prevented from being above them:

“Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kin.  Moreover, he shall not keep many horses…And he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess.  When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Torah written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests.  Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere his God, to observe faithfully every word of this teaching as well as these laws.  Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows….”

The Jewish King is one without many horses to wage war, or wives to make, as was done in ancient time, treaties with other countries, or much gold and silver to exercise his economic power.   

This all stands in stark contrast to the ancient Near East codes such as that of Hamurabi which proscribed punishment for killing a free land owning man, but for the murder of a slave only a monetery fine to its owner. 

Judaism, in fact, goes even farther in that the law itself is a democratic one.  Though the Torah is Divine and the Jews accepted it in an act of revelation, the application of its rules is governed not by God or the Divine code as it’s written, but by an oral tradition in which the law is according to the majority.   

In our times, when Jews are being attacked both physically and intellectually, our parsha reminds us to be very proud of our tradition, for it is the foundation of what we hold dear in modern American life.