Last week, many of us heard the 10 Commandments being read. These
commandments came at the end of weeks of build up as we learned of
our people gaining their freedom from Egyptian bondage with all the
plagues and miracles that led up to that big moment on Mt. Sinai and the
receiving of those 10 Commandments.
I’m talking high drama here. Thunder…lightning…voices of
revelation!! Big stuff…dramatic…and this week’s reading is Mishpatim
in which we’re given the plodding specificity of scores of civil and
religious laws. We go from big narrative storytelling to rather boring
lists of laws and instructions.
Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses describes going from Yitro to Mishpatim as
coming down the mountain with a real thud!
Gone are the salacious family stories of Genesis and the dramatic
national birth story of exodus. Starting with this week’s Parsha, sitting in
synagogue week after week, one can hear yawns all around.
What happened to the joy of sheer story? Why do we move from
aggadah (narrative) to halachah (law)?
What do you think of this? After all the suffering of the Israelites in
Egypt, the very first laws of Mishpatim concern slave ownership. Not
the prohibition of owning slaves, as one might want and expect, but the
rules detailing the treatment of a slave. Slavery as an institution is
simply presumed by the text. And you and I as Jews have to defend this!
After all those years enslaved…after witnessing the plagues…after
passing through the Red Sea to escape slavery,… why in the world are
the Israelites permitted the ownership of other human beings?
Smarter people than me have offered us some explanations which I’m
happy to pass along to you.
Mishpatim begins with the following law: (Ex. 21:2) “When you acquire
a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go
free.”
In other words, you can own a slave, but after seven years, you must set
that slave free. You were a slave, and now you will be a master. And as
a master you must liberate. As God liberated you, so must you set your
slave free.
Until this point in the text, we are told a story. We, you and me, are
watching these events happen to others. But, where story becomes law,
we are told how to live our lives. We are supremely implicated. The
Torah shifts from narrative to law.
The very first law captures the story that the Israelites had just
experienced, and yet, at the same point tells them to take control of that
narrative and perform it themselves – perform exodus, perform
liberation. You may be master, but you must become liberators. Every
seven years.
For the rest of the Torah, it’s about who WE are! Sure, there’s a little
story about spies, and a rebellion by Korach, and the zealousness of
Pinchas, but mainly folks, it’s about what laws, both civil and moral, are
we, as a people, going to define ourselves by.
Now that we’re free, how if at all, are we going to restrict some of our
actions to form a cohesion as an identifiable people, the Jewish people,
uniquely individual, a light unto the nation?
Now that we’re through with the stories, by what measures are we to
define ourselves?
As it was a challenge before us, so it is our challenge today.
Who are we as Jews?
Why do we exist?
Is it still important or relevant to separate ourselves in even minor ways
from our surrounding cultures?
That’s not a narrative but is certainly a challenge for the liberated.
Where do we, as Jews, go from here?
What are we holding onto that is so dear to us?
We’ve heard the stories.
Where do we go from here?
You and I, we think we’re pretty well educated. We keep up with news
events, we read a newspaper, watch news on TV.
In viewing nightly video reports, we see how other people seem to
misbehave badly. We always seem to be looking for someone who’s
been missing for several days, hearing of explosions that kill and maim
scores of people, or watching our celebrities from Bill Cosby to Jeff
Bezos living predatory and adulterous lives.
You have to wonder, where are the basic values today that are taught by
the Torah?
I submit for your consideration, that each of us decides what Torah
values we choose to embrace in our lifestyles and which to ignore.
Mishpatim asks us to think about our core values. How do we interact
with other people?
We’re all trying to understand the place of G-d in our lives.
From this pulpit, I’ve talked about deeds-based religion rather than
Judaism being a faith-based religion.
Just looking at the text in Mishpatim, we can get clues as to how we
should live… what values we should maintain.
Under what conditions should capital punishment be enforced?
What consequences should there be when a death occurs but
accidentally?
What punishment should there be for kidnapping?
What happens if two men fight and a pregnant woman gets pushed and
she has a miscarriage? What should be the penalty?
What if you own a work animal in your barn, in this case let’s say an ox,
and the animal goes on a rampage and kills a human being? Is the owner
of that animal to be held responsible?
What should be our involvement with the disadvantaged in our society?
In Chapter 23 of today’s parsha, we get laws about how we are to treat
our enemies. Do we think we can rely on Hamas to treat our hostages
with any degree of human kindness?
My point here, my friends, is that the world you and I are living in is
dealing with many of the very same issues our people dealt with in
biblical times.
In Russia and the Ukraine, they’re dealing with who controls what land.
And of course, in the Middle East, it’s all about the land,
notwithstanding the Balfour Declaration, in which England was given
the right to apportion the land that is now the State of Israel. There are
millions of people trying to refute the legitimate establishment of the
State of Israel and want that little sliver of land back, even though the
Muslim world controls the land of most of the Middle East and all of
northern Africa.
Laws mean nothing if the people don’t adhere to them.
Are we not seeing that today when illegal migrant people can get away
with attacking police officers, and do so with no fear of consequences.
Mishpatim is very clear, my friends.
You can’t have a society without laws.
You can’t have a society if there are no consequences to breaking those
laws. None of us can sleep soundly when there is no order in our world.
We can’t open up a business.
Case in point… Nordstroms, and just this week, a Walgreens, that had to
shut its doors, cutting off needed supplies to law abiding citizens,
because there is rampant shoplifting and defiant looting of retail stores.
Who loses when there is chaos?
We’re afraid to let our kids play out on the street. When I was growing
up, we were outside until dark! We freely played stickball, Johhny on
the Pony, football in the streets or on open lots, we rode our bikes pretty
much anywhere with no fear of unwarranted attacks.
The frail elderly are basically homebound.
Mishpatim clearly tells us that we Jews, if no one else, must demonstrate
by our high values, that we are going to adhere to laws that are to all of
our mutual benefits.
We elect representatives to constantly review the laws we live under to
determine if they need to be updated.
If it weren’t for our Rabbinic sages, for instance, we’d be taking out
someone’s eye if they happened to have caused blindness to someone
instead of the more civilized approach of mandating equivalent financial
reparations to the victim or even incarceration for the perpetrator.
The early forgers of the Constitution of the United States were well
versed in what they called the “Old Testament”, the Five Books of
Moses. Many laws on the books in our country plainly get their
derivation from Parshat Mishpatim.
A thorough reading of Mishpatim will give all of us a handle on how we
should react to events of the day that we see all the time on our TVs.
The Jewish people are about creating a just society but one that has a
vehicle by which mercy can have a place.
And isn’t that exactly how we describe G-d?
He is a G-d of justice but also, a G-d of mercy.
It is up to you and me to insure that there is a proper balance as we each
try to live… B’tzelem Elohim…in the image of G-d.
Shabbat Shalom