In the beginning of Parshas Yisro, Moshe is telling Yisro, his father-in-law, why he’s working so hard. The Pasuk says in Perek יח [טז]
כי-יהיה להם דבר בא אלי ושפטתי – when there’s a case, come to me and I’ll judge.
There’s a seeming grammatical anomaly in this verse. כי-יהיה להם, the word להם is plural. But בא אלי sounds singular. You’d expect to say that if they have an argument, THEY come to me, not בא אלי. In fact, in the אנקלוס we have here, he uses the word אתן – THEY come to me. Rav Saadiah Gaon also has it translated as באים אלי – they (plural) come to me.
Rashi is sensitive to this Lashon of דבר in this Pasuk, understanding it to mean its general definition of ‘something’. “Someone who has something, (e.g. a claim), then he goes to court. The way I understood Rashi, is that yes, it’s a court case between two people, but only one person, the claimant, actually goes to the court and instigates the case. We see this lashon at the end of next weeks Parsha, with the Pasuk מי-בעל דברים יגש אלהם – “whoever has a claim will go to them”.
I noticed that both the Netziv and the Meshech Chachmah explain בא אלי very simply in Pshat. The Netziv says it means ‘הענין’ – the case comes to Moshe, which is obviously singular, and the Meshech Chachmah adds something very telling to this. It refers to the case itself, due to that being the only factor that comes before Moshe, and not any preconceived notions about the people involved, that’s why we have this לשון יחיד.
Very often, when judging, especially when individuals are involved, a person’s relationship, understanding or prejudices regarding the litigants can come into play. Moshe was able to be completely objective. This is the case, this is the דין, this is the תורה. This message is very crucial in certainly judging, but also general life decision-making. We must be objective, look at things באמת – what really should be done in this case, without letting personal conveniences, prejudices and other outside influences push us in a direction that we should not go in.
Shabbat Shalom
