RABBI LAZER BRODY CHASSIDIC PEARLS ON THE PARSHA PARSHAS SHOFTIM

"Judges and officers shall you appoint in all your gates" (Devarim 16:18). A person is liable to misconstrue the above passage and say, "It's not my responsibility to appoint magistrates and policemen; the Torah's directives must therefore be for the leaders of the nation, but they don't obligate the individual." Nothing could be further from the truth. Even when the Torah speaks to the leaders of the nation, it has an important intrinsic message for the individual. The Torah says your gates in the Hebrew second-person singular in our passage at hand, to further emphasize that it is hereby conveying a significant lesson for the individual.