Dvar Torah Parsha Mishpatim 5783

Shemot 21:1-24:17

Parsha Mishpatim, also known as the Book of the Covenant, has many similarities to other near eastern lands of the time. What makes this one unique however is the combination of moral, civil, and religious laws in one document. It has four parts:

a.Civil and criminal matters
b.Variety of topics with emphasis on humanitarian concerns.
c.Affirms the divine promises to Israel and warns against assimilation to paganism.
d.How it was ratified and Moshe’s ascent to receive the decalogue carved in stone.

Torah combines the law, cultic instructions, and moral exhortation. Laws not from some king or Moshe, but from Hashem, woven into the very fabric of creation.

Some of which we read seems harsh by today’s standards. The rules regarding slavery for instance. But we must consider the world as it was then. After all, the cruelest form of slavery, chattel slavery, was only abolished 158 years ago, and politicians are still debating today to find ways not to look at disparate treatment designed to keep an entire class of people in permanent second-class citizenship and especially do not teach the children regarding our colossal moral failure. Rather, in Mishpatim, the rules are designed to ameliorate the excesses of the treatment that we experienced in Mitzrayim.

In fact we in this parsha are called time and again to a system of ethics, to remember our own suffering. For instance, look at the case of the poor. The poor will always be with us. We can bring improvements while ensuring the dignity of others. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg of Hadar points out that while the among poor many must borrow, but Torah prohibits charging interest. Also, if the lender takes a coat as collateral, they must return it to the borrower at night so they can stay warm.

Twice in our parsha, we read:

“Do not ill-treat a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in Egypt.” Shemot 22:20
“Do not oppress a stranger; you yourself know how it feels to be a stranger. (Literally: you know the soul of a stranger) because you were strangers in Egypt. In Torah, Rabbi Sacks mentions that often alongside the ger were the widow, the orphan, the poor all included. The stranger must be given all benefits others hold in Jewish society. Later in Leviticus we see love your neighbor as yourself. Rabbi Eliezer says the admonition regarding the stranger appears 36 time. Others say 46 times. We do know such repletion does not happen without a reason.

Sacks goes on to say, we as Jews have always been the stranger. Indeed, looking around now we are today living in diaspora and once again the ugliness of Jew Hatred is rearing its head. Sacks says simply, “Why should I not hate the stranger? Because the stranger is me.”

Reflecting on this parsha, two words leap out to me. One is compassion; the other is empathy. To look into the eyes of the stranger, to draw on our own experience, our own history, to begin to see the world through that person’s eyes; it is a place of connection. It’s where compassion blossoms and healing begins. A place of caring, of acting out of love. We are called to heal the world. It begins here. Baruch Hashem.