Exodus Mishpatim

Mishpatim
Exodus 21:1 −24:18

I. Summary

A. Mishpatim = (These are the) “rules” (that you shall set before them).

B. Context: Israelites are at foot of Sinai only ten weeks after departing Egypt and have just received Ten Commandments. God is speaking to Moses who will deliver God’s words to fearful Israelites.

C. Interpersonal laws including treatment of slaves, killing, assault, kidnapping, insulting a parent, causing miscarriages, ox-goring, harming/stealing animals, unauthorized animal grazing, starting fires, misappropriation, seduction of virgins, bestiality, god sacrifice, kindness to strangers/widows/orphans, loans, giving 1st yield to God, eating flesh torn by beasts, carrying false rumors, not favoring strong or weak, treatment of enemies and bribery. (21:1-23:9)

D. Cultic laws follow, including the commandment to observe the Sabbatical Year, a repetition of the Sabbath injunction, the first mention of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals (Feasts of Unleavened Bread/Passover, Harvest/Shavuot and Ingathering/Sukkot), rules of sacrificial offerings and the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. (23:10-19)

E. God agrees to protect Israelites from their enemies (“I will be an enemy to your enemies”) but warns Israelites to obey God (“he will not pardon your offences”) and not respect any other god (“shall not bow down to their gods”). God promises to gradually drive out Hittites and Canaanites prior to Israelites entering/occupying land. (23:20-33)

F. God asks Moses and seventy elders to Israelites to “come up to the Eternal” though “Moses alone shall come near the Eternal” (reference to before Ten Commandments delivered = timing issue since Commandments delivered in prior parasha). Israelites agree to the covenant by saying "All that God has spoken we will do". (24:3 - a verbatim repetition of what was said in 19:8 and will be said in 24:7) which ratifies the covenant (hence laws in Mishpatim called Covenant Code/Book of the Covenant). (24:1-3)

G. Moses writes down all of God’s commands. He then sets up altar at foot of Mount Sinai, offers sacrifices and reads covenant to the people. They again respond with “All that God has spoken we will do and hear". Moses seals covenant by sprinkling sacrificial blood on Israelites. (24:4-8)

H. Following God’s prior order (24:1), Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascend the mountain and “see God” (or as much of God as a human could see while still remaining alive). God tells Moses to go up the mountain alone where he will receive the stone tablets. Moses does so and spends forty days on the mountain. (24:9-18)

II. Commentary (Plaut, various websites and prior Hevreh discussions)

A. Treatment of slaves as measure of a society - The Hebrew slave (eved ... a domestic servant rather than an indentured slave) is given a central position in the Torah, right after the Ten Commandments, to teach that the treatment of the eved is critically important. A society is judged by how it treats its weakest, most disenfranchised members. Also, when we stood at Mount Sinai, we became servants of God.

B. Ten Commandments not in liturgy - In order to distinguish the Jewish community from the “Minim” (sectarian Jews who were already on the periphery of the Jewish community and about to become Christians), the rabbis removed the Ten Commandments from the service, lest the average Jew-on-the-street was to walk in during the rabbinic service, hear the Ten Commandments, and conclude: "Yes, indeed, the Ten Commandments are sufficient, I don't need anything else." Principles of Decalogue are grand and magnificent but they are not enough to live by thereby creating necessity for specifics in Mishpatim.

C. Need for specificity of Mishpatim - Jewish law is all-encompassing: As Jews, we must integrate the specific rules and guidelines of the Torah into many aspects of our everyday lives. It is simply not enough to be a Jew only when we walk through the synagogue doors. We must choose to honor our freedom by acting Jewishly in all aspects of our lives. This freedom comes with the heavy price of being aware at all times of our responsibility to always act in accordance with God’s word. Jewish spirituality comes through grappling with the mundane world in a way that uplifts and elevates. Contra, do Israelites need specifics because they are still in their slave mentality and are used to being told what to do? Does specificity reflect God questioning Israelites ability to always act consistently within broader mandates of Ten Commandments?

D. Being there - “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you the stone tablets”. (Exodus 24:12) Moses was to be there with all his mind and heart (be in the moment … variation of “hineni”?, variation of “mindfulness” in meditation?).

E. Mishpatim: case laws v. imperatives – Rules in Mishpatim can be divided into two groups. First group of rules (21:2–22:16) are formulated mainly as case laws. The second group of rules (22:17–23:19) are phrased as unconditional (apodictic) imperatives, similar to the language of the Decalogue. Both groups have divine origin, i.e. a religious document rather than human made or based on custom.

F. Mishpatim v. Chukeem - According to Rashi's commentary on Leviticus 18:4, the mitzvot fall into two categories: 1) Mishpatim - Laws that we would have probably set up in the absence of Torah … they make rational sense, govern mostly the secular world and include laws that appeal to our ethics, sense of morality, and sense of social justice). 2) Chukeem - Laws pertaining to ritual observance that we might not have thought of on our own, e.g. festival observances, kashrut, b'rit milah, wearing of tzitzit, and fasting on Yom Kippur, and have the potential to expand our experience of holiness.

G. Seeing God – “They saw the God of Israel: Under God's feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. Yet God did not raise God's hand against the leaders of the Israelites; they beheld God, and they ate and drank." (Exodus 24:9-11) There is an inconsistency in our texts and in our general understanding of what it means to see God. On the one hand, we cannot see God and live (Exodus 33:20). On the other hand, we live to see God and recognize the Divine in our loved ones, in strangers, and in the world. How can we reconcile this juxtaposition of contrary ideas? We must make a distinction between seeing the divine beauty of the world, a symbol of God's glory, and the possibility of being stricken down by our audacity to look God in the face as equals.

H. “An eye for an eye” – Talmud teaches that “an eye for an eye” (21:24) means financial compensation ... not physical retribution (except for intentional homicide), i.e. the intention of this biblical expression of justice was that punishment for the loss of an eye was, at most, the financial value for the loss of an eye. Fixed compensation reflects attitude that offenses such as homicide and adultery were private injuries rather than offenses against at-large community requiring punishment by state. Given the biblical constraints that limit the meting out of justice, the anti-Jewish message in Matthew 5:38–39 (New Testament statements attributed to Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you ...‘If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other.’ “) loses much of its power.

I. “We will do and we will hear” - Interpreted as an enthusiastic commitment to act, the phrase (at 19:8, 24:3 and 24:7) has also been misunderstood as a call to action that omits understanding; however, it is a shining moment for Israelites who, after the blood ritual, voice a willingness to do God’s will even before understanding it fully. They accept the importance of doing mitzvot, of adhering to the law as a path to understanding it (variation of “hineni”?). Distinguish 24:3 ("All that God has spoken we will do" … na'aseh) ... from 24:7 ("All that God has spoken we will do and hear"… na'aseh v’nishma). Plaut does not even include “hear” in translation of 24:7; however, omitted translation is significant in that “hearing” suggests a form of internalizing what is being said. Is Plaut’s (presumably intentional) omission his way of emphasizing importance of actions (“do”) over words (“hear”)?

J. Interpreting the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother's milk – Basis for kashrut prohibition of mixing meat and milk. There are at least six interpretations of prohibition in 23:19: 1) magical/prophylactic to preserve milk giving capacity of cow, 2) prevents abominations of the nations (pagan practices) against which Israelites were warned, 3) discourages idolatry, 4) supports moral requisite of not annihilating two generations at a time, 5) sanctifying human life and not mixing opposites of life (milk) and death (cooking) and 6) representative of prohibition against incest between a man and his mother.

(Revised 2/6/10)