שופטים ושטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך אשר ה' אלקיך נתן לך לשבטיך ושפטו את העם משפט צדק
“Judges and officers shall you appoint in all your cities — which Hashem, your G-d, gives you — for your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.” (Devorim 16:18)
In Mishlei (6:6–8), Shlomah HaMelech describes the industriousness of the ant and how we must learn from it: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; see its ways and grow wise. Though there is neither officer nor guard nor ruler over her, she prepares her food in the summer and stores up her food in the harvest time.”
The Medrash (Devorim Rabbah 5:2) details how the ant has three houses (or floors), and it does not store its food in the top floor because of rain, and not in the bottom because of mud, but in the middle. In addition, it is incredibly hardworking, collecting more food than it can possibly need in many lifetimes (which last only six months). In fact, Rabbi Tanchuma said that an ant doesn’t eat more than a grain and a half of wheat its whole life, yet it gathers way, way more, thinking, “Maybe Hashem will allow me to live longer, and then I will need more food.”
The ant acts with extreme derech eretz, fleeing from theft and taking care not to take food that another ant has already laid claim to. Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta tells the story of a grain dropped by an ant. Though the rest of the ants came by and smelled the grain, not one of them stole it, until its owner finally came and took it. And all of this in the absence of any system of
