Mishpatim – English

EUPJ Torah Commentary – Mishpatim 5786

Rabbi Akiva Weingarten

Parashat Mishpatim begins with a striking shift. After the revelation at Sinai, after thunder and fire and a voice that shook the nation, the Torah moves immediately to what appear to be ordinary legal details. The portion opens:

וְאֵלֶּה הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר תָּשִׂים לִפְנֵיהֶם
These are the ordinances / laws that you shall set before them (Shemot 21,1).

Rashi comments that the word ואלה (when written with a vav), connects these laws to the Ten Commandments given on mount Sinai.

Rashi adds to this:

לִפְנֵיהֶם – וְלֹא לִפְנֵי גוֹיִם (גיטין פ”ח ע”ב). וַאֲפִלּוּ יָדַעְתָּ בְדִין אֶחָד שֶׁהֵם דָּנִין אוֹתוֹ כְדִינֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אַל תְּבִיאֵהוּ בָעַרְכָּאוֹת שֶׁלָּהֶם, שֶׁהַמֵּבִיא דִינֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִפְנֵי גוֹיִם מְחַלֵּל אֶת הַשֵּׁם
Before them – and not before gentiles (Gittin 88b). And even if you know that they judge him according to the laws of Israel, do not bring him before their courts, for one who brings the laws of Israel before gentiles desecrates the (God’s) name.

The Ramban deepens the meaning:

ולכך אמר בכאן שהמשפטים האלה ישימו אותם לפני האלהים שיזכיר ולא לפני גוים ולא לפני מי שאינו שופט על פי התורה
And so he said here that these judgments should be brought before God to remember, and not before the nations, nor before those who do not judge according to the Torah.

One might expect that after Sinai the Torah would continue with elevated spiritual teachings. Instead we receive laws about damages, injuries, loans, servants and strangers.

The Sefat Emet teaches that this descent into detail is itself the point. He writes:

אך עיקר הרצון שידעו שאף המשפטים שמובנין עפ”י שכל האדם עכ”ז הם רק ע”י שכן רצונו ית’. וזהו הטעם שאסור לדון לפני גוים אף שדנין כישראל כי המשפט לאלקים
But the main point is that they should know that even judgments that are understood according to human reason are nevertheless only by His will. And this is the reason why it is forbidden to judge before gentiles, even though they judge as Israel, because judgment belongs to God. (Sefat Emet, Mishpatim 5631).

At the end of Bavli Makkot (23b), Rabbi Shmuel says that six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses our teacher, and three hundred and sixty-five of them are negative commandments, corresponding to the number of days in the solar year, and two hundred and forty-eight are positive commandments, corresponding to the number of human limbs. Rabbi Manuna adds that “Torah tzivah lanu Moshe morasha” – “Torah” in gematria is six hundred and one, ‘Anochi’ and “Lo yihyeh lach” we heard from the mouth of God. The meaning of this is “because the positive commandments are as numerous as the number of limbs, meaning that every limb tells him to do a commandment, and the negative commandments are as numerous as the days of the year, meaning that every day tells a person not to sin.” (Rambam Hakdama Mishne Torah).

The revelation at Sinai would remain incomplete unless it descended into the daily and the human. The Torah enters the world precisely by entering its complexity.

A theme that runs through the portion is empathy, especially empathy for the vulnerable. The Torah commands:

וְגֵר לֹא תִלְחַץ וְאַתֶּם יְדַעְתֶּם אֶת נֶפֶשׁ הַגֵּר כִּי גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
You shall not oppress the stranger since you know the soul of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Shemot 23,9).

The Torah instructs not only a law but a mode of consciousness. Empathy is born from memory. Our suffering in Egypt becomes the source of our responsibility toward others.

This principle appears again in a different register. At the end of the portion we read that Moses ascends the mountain for forty days. In another context the Talmud says:

אין אדם עומד על דעת רבו עד ארבעים שנה
A person does not fully grasp the mind of their teacher until forty years (Avoda Zarah 5b).

Revelation is not instant. Understanding requires time and relationship. The people receive the laws at Sinai. Only later, with experience, do they come to understand what those laws demand of them. Torah becomes real through practice.

Mishpatim demands a kind of moral imagination. Many of the laws concern hypothetical situations. One who causes injury. One whose animal causes harm. One who lends money. These situations are not meant only as legal hypotheticals. They are invitations to imagine the world as others experience it. The command not to mistreat the stranger depends upon our ability to remember and to feel. The laws about damages depend upon our ability to consider consequences beyond ourselves.

The law is not imposed from above. It is set before the people. It is explained. It is meant to be understood. A just society depends upon a citizenry that knows why its structures matter.

This attention to moral clarity has personal implications as well. Parashat Mishpatim is filled with obligations, boundaries and responsibilities. Yet the Hasidic masters often saw the legal sections of the Torah as spiritual maps of the inner life.

This resonates with another well known teaching from the world of Hasidut. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov insists:

אין שום ייאוש בעולם כלל
There is absolutely no despair in the world (Likutei Moharan I,282).

Despair, he explains, blinds a person to movement and possibility. The legal world of Mishpatim presumes that human beings can grow, repair, repay and restore. If a person injures another they must make restitution. If a thief returns what was taken there is a path back. At the core of the Torah’s legal vision is hope. Even damage can lead to repair. Even conflict can lead to renewed relationship.

The juxtaposition of revelation and law contains a kind of message about what holiness means in human terms. Sinai is extraordinary but human life unfolds in the ordinary. The presence of God is found in the ways we treat one another, in boundaries that protect and obligations that bind. To be a community that receives Torah is to be a community that cares for the stranger, the vulnerable and the forgotten. It is to cultivate the kind of empathy that grows from memory. It is to build a society where responsibility is shared and where justice is pursued.

Mishpatim invites us to understand that holiness is not only a moment but a practice. The laws set before us are not relics of an ancient world. They are mirrors in which we see ourselves and invitations to rise toward the people we are called to be.

Rabbi Akiva Weingarten is the chief Rabbi of the state of Saxony, Germany, the rabbi of the city of Dresden, and previously served the Liberal community Migwan in Basel, Switzerland. He is the founder of the Haichal Besht synagogue in Bnei Brak, Israel, the Haichal Besht synagogue in Berlin, and the Besht Yeshiva in Dresden.