Boulder Aish Kodesh

From the peaks of the Sinai experience come the harsh, almost shockingly profane, realities of Mishpatim. We are plunged with body and soul into questions of commerce, the reality of slavery, animals and people acting violently toward one another. One might feel that it was not supposed to be this way – the ear that heard from the mouth of the Divine “I am Hashem your G-d” should be incapable of countenancing the bestialities and sub=human behaviors that mark this week’s reading.

We learn from this quite clearly that receiving the Torah does not eliminate one’s human tendencies. Nor, we might say, is it meant to. What the receiving of the Torah does, though, is give a vantage point from which we can look at those facets of our lives in hopes of infusing them with that same sense of “I am Hashem your G-d.” Yitro is the context, and we might say ‘goal’, of Mishpatim.

Far more difficult than remembering Parshat Yitro when we read Mishpatim is remembering the crystal-clear moment of Har Sinai as we walk in the world today. The generation that actually received the Torah couldn’t last 40 days without needing to replace G-d with a cow made of gold. We, 3500 years later, are expected to remember? This is even included in the six remembrances that are to be contemplated after morning service: “Only be quite careful, and guard your self, lest you forget that which your eyes saw, and lest they leave your consciousness all the days of your life. And you shall make known to your children, and your children’s children, about the day when you stood before Hashem your G-d at Horev.” If they couldn’t remember, how can we?

The laws that we have, though, are designed to help us remember. It is understood that our stand at Sinai ends: “You have stood at this moment far too long. Turn, and travel…” (Devarim 1:6,7). It is expected of us that we will be people that work the earth, that own animals, that dig pits and get in fights, that make mistakes and lose control. And it is expected that, in the midst of such a life, we will remember G-d of Sinai. How? It is the very matrix of laws described in Mishpatim, whose net covers nearly every aspect of our lives, which can serve as a constant reminder – when it is not seen as oppressive.

This sense of oppression that we might feel in response to this cold matrix of laws belies the fact that the word in Hebrew for laws, דינים, has another connotation: harsh judgment or decree. The feeling that one’s success in a certain matter is being denied by Divine will is similar to the feeling that one’s relationship to G-d is marked not by love but by laws. It is our need for freedom to navigate our own destinies crashing into the wall of law.

Law and judgment are cold in the hands of a relationship that does not clearly project love. When the intent is clear – ‘because of my love for you, I am telling you how I want this done’ – then laws, judgments, boundaries and guidelines are welcome. But when the ‘legislated’ ‘judged’ or ‘guided’ partner does not feel that love, then laws and judgments are cold walls of a house with no hearth. Those moments of legislation can be seen as motivated by lack of love and desire for distance.

We do not want to experience G-d only as lawgiver – particularly after the chosenness implied by Sinai. We want to know that the love of ‘I have borne you upon eagles’ wings, and brought you to Me’ persists and is eternal. We are therefore challenged to find the love in the law, and to hear in each mitzvah an invitation to relationship with

G-d. But, in order to do that, we must rise above the dualistic sense that G-d as lover is better than G-d as law-giver. The closer we can get to seeing that they are expressions of the same love, the closer we will come to seeing the G-d-service in not leaving a pit uncovered and guarding our dangerous ox. We are challenged to break our perception that Sinai was a ‘higher’ spiritual experience than Mishpatim. .

When we can overcome our ideas of separation between ‘spiritual experience’ and ‘adherence to law’, we will find deep relationship to G-d through law. For underlying the cold distance of the law is a deep trust in our ability to erect and maintain a perfect society. All of these laws featured in Mishpatim are the outline of a society that has the loftiest of ideals in place: respect for humans, respect for animals, respect for property, respect for family. It calls us to a level of responsibility not only for ourselves, but for our possessions. It understands that we are human, and confers upon us the task of making humanity divine.

G-d, in a sense, sees in us the potential to fulfill the vision of a perfected world, and therefore trusts us with the plan of how to get there. When we fall below away from the task, G-d calls us back to the task. That calling back can feel shameful. It can hurt. It sometimes feels like punishment. But punishment serves as a reminder that we are capable of fulfilling the law, for the giving of the law itself was rooted in the faith that we could fulfill it.

One might propose that a ‘perfect society’ has no place for slavery, no place for fistfights and philanderers. I would propose that a perfect society is one that knows how to adequately deal with all the situations that would come up as a result of the full human experience. The society envisioned in Mishpatim is not one that ignores people’s urge to steal, or to hurt others, or to hurt themselves. Rather, it is a vision that accounts for these urges and properly meets them face-to-face. Mishpatim is part of a process. It is an essential link between us and the Sinai experience. It gains its very power and relevance by legislating the darker sides of human experience in a relevant way. If it instead drew a picture of society that had no fights, no slavery, no rampant animals, it would be a premature vision that would bring a sense of guilt in tow.

Alternatively, what we get is that slavery is legal but legislated: the laws are such that, with a Jewish slave, if the master sleeps on a comfortable bed, the salve must be given the same treatment. In fact, the laws are so intense and frustrating that the Talmud writes, “Anyone that acquires a slave acquires a master.” There is a sense that, with these laws in place, slavery will be allowed to exist, and will be allowed to become so undesirable that no one will do it. The ramifications of venting anger violently will be so extreme, that ‘all will learn, and fear’. By understanding that these are real possibilities in the human experience, and then making the results unbearable, Mishpatim shows a deep concern with pointing the human experience as we know it toward the heights of Sinai. Mishpatim is the Sinai experience sending its tentacles out into the unrefined human realm, hooking us in and reminding us of who we could and must be.

Once we have found that the law is an expression of love, then we can experience the grid of halacha as a system of capillaries connecting us to the heart.