Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Mishpatim 5776
Not in Heaven
As the chapters
following the Revelation at Sinai unfold, the narrative seems to have been
replaced by a slew of laws. Servants, cattle, damages and punitive obligations
fill the pages of this week’s Torah portion, and it seems as if the lofty
experience of standing at Sinai and witnessing the theophany has been eclipsed by
the pedestrian realities of everyday life.
The shift is quite dramatic: The first 20 Chapters of Shmot
were filled with pathos and action: An abused nation and its savior, a magical
staff, mighty plagues and the splitting of the sea, the introduction of the manna
and the wonder of Shabbat inspired us and connected us with heaven. All this,
followed by the Revelation at Sinai – literally, the most awesome experience mankind has ever
experienced. And then, somehow, the narrative gives way to everyday hustle and
bustle, the real-life problems that are the central feature of Parashat
Mishpatim: If an ox gores and causes damage, restitution must be paid.
There is no question that these laws are both logical and necessary
for the functioning of the nation; what may need explanation is their context.
Why the sudden shift from the spiritual apex at Sinai to the minutiae of
Mishpatim? Why the shift from religious law to common law?
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter once famously observed that the physical needs of our fellow man are
our own spiritual obligation. Parshat
Mishpatim may be understood in much the same vein: Our financial obligations
are, in fact, spiritual obligations. All our workaday interpersonal
relationships are part and parcel of our religious life. While we might be
tempted to think that the reduction of lofty, Divine law into hard currency is
demeaning, the Torah seems to be teaching quite the opposite: Had Torah law dealt
exclusively with overtly otherworldly, spiritual concerns, it would not be the
Living Torah, the Torah of Life, that it is. A Torah that deals exclusively
with our relationship with God would be a Torah that is irrelevant for much of
life’s
realities, and not a way of life.
In other words, it is precisely the context which makes
these laws so interesting and compelling. Last week’s parasha ended as the People took a
collective step back from the overwhelming religious experience at Sinai.
Hearing God speak directly to them proved too much for them; the nation asked
that Moshe act as an intermediary, that he alone stand and receive the Word of
God and teach them in a more manageable, recognizable fashion. When the heavens
opened and they each heard the ten statements uttered by God Himself, the
people begged for God to stop. They felt incapable of accepting the Torah
directly from God, and asked that Moshe receive it on their behalf. Immediately
following this request, Parashat Mishpatim begins: These are the laws God then
shared with Moshe. This is the precise content that God intended to transmit
directly to each and every member of the nation, but which they felt incapable
of receiving directly. Parashat Mishpatim, with its seemingly mundane and
detailed social laws, is the content of that awesome and awe-inspiring
Revelation.
So much non-Jewish religious belief focuses on the
spiritual world, on the aspects of holiness and spirituality that are divorced
from human experience and interaction. We might have imagined that the Torah,
too, would concern itself only with this aspect of human capability. Yet the unmistakable
message of the laws God taught Moshe at Mount Sinai is that no such division
exists in Judaism. The Torah, which comes from heaven, is not in heaven, nor is
it designed for heavenly beings. Torah deals with the reality that unfolds on
the lowly terra firma, and not in some rarified atmosphere occupied by beings
who are wholly spiritual.
The social obligations enumerated in Parashat Mishpatim are
Divine law. An elevated level of human interaction is also holy, and no less a
spiritual commandment than the laws regulating our service of God. The
obligation to perfect human society is a Divine imperative.
