The order of the requests throughout the Amidah follows a logical pattern. In the interest of national teshuvah we first asked that we, as members on the nation, be healthy, we then prayed that the Land of Israel yield its produce and prepare for our nation’s return home, and now we express our longing for the re-establishment of the Jewish state where God’s supreme reign is obvious and where the leaders are guided by His values and ideals: Restore our judges as before and our advisors as in the beginning, and remove from us sorrow and sighing. And You, YHVH, alone, reign over us with kindness and compassion, and may we be justified through judgment. Blessed are You, YHVH, the King who loves justice and judgment. Shofteinu, the Hebrew word for “our judges,” alludes to the time of the prophets, when the Jewish state was governed by leaders who embodied Torah ideals and values—leaders who humbly acknowledged God as the true head of state. Among the books of the prophets, there is an entire book called Shoftim, dedicated to this period of Jewish history. Without law and order there can only be chaos, conflict and anguish. The re-establishment of judges and advisors who properly lead and direct us will also relieve us of the sorrow we have suffered in the exile under the tyranny of evil rulers. After the destruction of the second Temple, the Jewish people were exiled from their land and thus subject to the rulers of the various nations in which they lived. No longer was the Torah consulted in matters of politics or law—a state of affairs that remains to this day even in Israel. Since the beginning of the exile, this prayer has expressed the Jewish people’s longing for the re-establishment of the Jewish state where God’s supreme reign is obvious, and where the leaders are guided by His Torah. However, this can only happen if it is clear to all of us that God is the head of state. Therefore we qualify: “And You, YHVH, alone, reign over us.” We do not want to return to the Land of Israel to build an ordinary secular state governed by irreverent rulers and man-made laws. We want the state of Israel to be a holy kingdom under the reign of God and His Torah. And we ask that God govern us in the unique way that only He can—with both “kindness and compassion.” However, we acknowledge that our ultimate aspiration is that we be “justified through [God’s] judgment.” Only God—who can see every moment within the context of all of time—can rule over us with both kindness and compassion and yet eventually justify us through His judgment. We want no freebees; instead, we want to get what we deserve and merit what God gives us.