The following was written and delivered by Abra Soule upon becoming b'mitzvah on Parashat Mishpatim 5784 // February 10, 2024.
Narratively, this parashah is a record scratch following the high-action drama of the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS…And then Mishpatim delivers us to rules about slavery. Still with the slavery? Interesting choice. And oxen. Rules about oxen, just so many oxen related scenarios.
This parsha contains judicial ordinances, rules and rulings for when harm has occurred. This is literally community organizing–setting shared norms and ideals towards a new way of being together.
So what do we make of this extreme shift of narrative tone? How do we reconcile the high drama with the dry detail? While not inspiring, Mishpatim is very grounding in its realities–it’s a shock of cold water after the heat of the sun of divine revelation.
In this dvar I'm arguing that this juxtaposition is a false one, that there is no true separation between the drama of the divine and the mundane of the mundane. I'm approaching this from a non-dualistic perspective, there is no self and other, there is no separation from Adonai and the physical universe, and all actions we take have the capacity for divine spark because divine spark is embedded in us.
This is a story of a people organizing themselves after being enslaved, grappling with the difficult choice to continue as they have known, or to change and grow into something bigger, something more just, and maybe more divine.
Now Moses’ father in law Jethro just told him in the last parsha: slow your role, you’re going to burn yourself out from ruling on every disagreement brought forward. So they created a hierarchy of groups of judges to delegate out the work of resolving community conflict. Now in Mishpatim we’re getting guidelines for not just the “if this occurs, then this is the ruling,” but also very important “hows” for the judges to hold in their head as they are doing this.
Now how does something like “the specific way I go about doing my job” point towards divinity?
Author, philosopher, and general mensch Sir Terry Pratchett writes of the concepts of First Sight and Second Thoughts which I think are applicable here. First Sight is the ability to see what is actually there instead of what we expect or want to see, and Second Thoughts being the ability to step back and ask “why am I thinking what I did just now? What's influencing me right now?”
Developing these abilities takes time and effort and are in fact a form of mindfulness in line with what Mishpatim requests from the judges.
Exodus 23:2-3 states: "You shall neither go along with the multitude to do wrong--you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty--nor shall you show deference to a poor person in a dispute.
Breaking it down line by line:
You shall neither go along with the majority to do wrong
And
you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty--
Sefer HaChinukh, an anonymous work written in thirteenth-century Spain that details the 613 mitzvot says on these verses: [This is] meaning to say, do not say something about a dispute to incline — meaning only from the side of leaning towards the words of a great judge or towards the majority — and not from the side of your understanding.
I love the language here of inclining–if you are leaning, if you are both being drawn towards something, and being lazy by not standing upright on your own. Continuing:
Or if you want to be silent from [saying] that which is in your heart about the case and [instead] to incline after their words, do not do so. …that you not say, ‘It is enough for me that I be like Rabbi x,’ but rather, say what is in your heart.
Thus, we cannot go along for the sake of going along even when we’re tired, or it’s easier, or it’s fraught. Justice must be followed in a balanced way even if it’s harder than we may like.
Moving on to verse, 23:3: …nor shall you show deference to a poor person in a dispute.
From Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary authored by The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Rabbinical Assembly, in 2001, we get an example of a judge who is tempted to find for a poor claimant but:
Instead, he is told to find for the rich defendant as the law requires and help the poor out of his own pocket (BT Hul. 134a.) The Sages fear that if nonlegal considerations are permitted to distort legal judgements, people will lose faith in the fairness of the courts, and the poor will suffer more from that loss of faith.”
Here's a point where both first sight and second thoughts come into practice–
can we see to the truth of justice regardless of what material conditions might affect our view of the situation?
Can we hold aside the very human part of ourselves that might be clamoring to right a wrong of economies, and let the role of judge we hold stand alone?
Change, even good change, is a stressor and requires a level of mindfulness which is hard to maintain. We cannot leap from captivity to liberation in one massive go and expect ourselves to get it right immediately. These rules provide a focus point, an opportunity for paying attention to a new way of being as we go day by day.
Mishpatim follows Yitro as a guide to bring the divine into each part of our existence and transforms our understanding of the mundane into the divine.
Narratively, this parashah is a record scratch following the high-action drama of the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS…And then Mishpatim delivers us to rules about slavery. Still with the slavery? Interesting choice. And oxen. Rules about oxen, just so many oxen related scenarios.
This parsha contains judicial ordinances, rules and rulings for when harm has occurred. This is literally community organizing–setting shared norms and ideals towards a new way of being together.
So what do we make of this extreme shift of narrative tone? How do we reconcile the high drama with the dry detail? While not inspiring, Mishpatim is very grounding in its realities–it’s a shock of cold water after the heat of the sun of divine revelation.
In this dvar I'm arguing that this juxtaposition is a false one, that there is no true separation between the drama of the divine and the mundane of the mundane. I'm approaching this from a non-dualistic perspective, there is no self and other, there is no separation from Adonai and the physical universe, and all actions we take have the capacity for divine spark because divine spark is embedded in us.
This is a story of a people organizing themselves after being enslaved, grappling with the difficult choice to continue as they have known, or to change and grow into something bigger, something more just, and maybe more divine.
Now Moses’ father in law Jethro just told him in the last parsha: slow your role, you’re going to burn yourself out from ruling on every disagreement brought forward. So they created a hierarchy of groups of judges to delegate out the work of resolving community conflict. Now in Mishpatim we’re getting guidelines for not just the “if this occurs, then this is the ruling,” but also very important “hows” for the judges to hold in their head as they are doing this.
Now how does something like “the specific way I go about doing my job” point towards divinity?
Author, philosopher, and general mensch Sir Terry Pratchett writes of the concepts of First Sight and Second Thoughts which I think are applicable here. First Sight is the ability to see what is actually there instead of what we expect or want to see, and Second Thoughts being the ability to step back and ask “why am I thinking what I did just now? What's influencing me right now?”
Developing these abilities takes time and effort and are in fact a form of mindfulness in line with what Mishpatim requests from the judges.
Exodus 23:2-3 states: "You shall neither go along with the multitude to do wrong--you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty--nor shall you show deference to a poor person in a dispute.
Breaking it down line by line:
You shall neither go along with the majority to do wrong
And
you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty--
Sefer HaChinukh, an anonymous work written in thirteenth-century Spain that details the 613 mitzvot says on these verses: [This is] meaning to say, do not say something about a dispute to incline — meaning only from the side of leaning towards the words of a great judge or towards the majority — and not from the side of your understanding.
I love the language here of inclining–if you are leaning, if you are both being drawn towards something, and being lazy by not standing upright on your own. Continuing:
Or if you want to be silent from [saying] that which is in your heart about the case and [instead] to incline after their words, do not do so. …that you not say, ‘It is enough for me that I be like Rabbi x,’ but rather, say what is in your heart.
Thus, we cannot go along for the sake of going along even when we’re tired, or it’s easier, or it’s fraught. Justice must be followed in a balanced way even if it’s harder than we may like.
Moving on to verse, 23:3: …nor shall you show deference to a poor person in a dispute.
From Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary authored by The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Rabbinical Assembly, in 2001, we get an example of a judge who is tempted to find for a poor claimant but:
Instead, he is told to find for the rich defendant as the law requires and help the poor out of his own pocket (BT Hul. 134a.) The Sages fear that if nonlegal considerations are permitted to distort legal judgements, people will lose faith in the fairness of the courts, and the poor will suffer more from that loss of faith.”
Here's a point where both first sight and second thoughts come into practice–
can we see to the truth of justice regardless of what material conditions might affect our view of the situation?
Can we hold aside the very human part of ourselves that might be clamoring to right a wrong of economies, and let the role of judge we hold stand alone?
Change, even good change, is a stressor and requires a level of mindfulness which is hard to maintain. We cannot leap from captivity to liberation in one massive go and expect ourselves to get it right immediately. These rules provide a focus point, an opportunity for paying attention to a new way of being as we go day by day.
Mishpatim follows Yitro as a guide to bring the divine into each part of our existence and transforms our understanding of the mundane into the divine.
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