Mishpatim – Once Upon a Week

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Yehuda Bachana.

This sentence sounds as if is continuing from the previous portion – the giving of the Torah and the ten commandments. However, we are always asking, for centuries, if the Mishpatim Portion preceded the giving of the Torah.

In last week reading, Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, came to visit Moses, he witnessed a leadership crisis - Moses was acting as the solo representative of the government, and every decision had to go through him. When Jethro saw it, he understood that this structure was domed to collapse. Neither Moses nor the people would be able to continue in such a way.

Even if Moses was the strongest human being ever, such a load would eventually break him. It would be bad for him and the people would not get their justice in a timely manner.

People need and want justice, and if the judge, Moses in our case, is not available or the waiting for the actual hearing date is too long, people will find different ways. They will find other advisors or other judges that will eventually destroy the actual government. When Jethro saw it, he understood the consequences and advised Moses to put the leadership system in place.

For an example, King David’s lack of justice allowed Absalom’s rebellion to happen. We read that Absalom “stole the hearts of the people.” How did he do it? We read in 2 Samuel that every morning Absalom got up early and went down to the city gate where he told the people who came to see the judge:

Absalom told people, that if you are looking for a quick, efficient, available, and fare justice system, I, the king’s son, will make sure you receive it. And that is exactly what happened.

The lack of justice, or a corrupt justice system, bothers us, makes us angry. It is hard for us to deal with a system that is unjust, overcomplicated or inefficient.

The next king after David, was Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived.We remember, that when God offered to fulfill his one wish, any wish, in what was a very good decision, Solomon chose wisdom. With it, he got both honor and wealth.But Solomon didn’t ask for just any wisdom. He asked for a very special kind of wisdom – to judge righteously, to judge wisely:

In the previous Torah Portion, Moses listened to Jethro. He chose men of valor and built a justice system. Then Moses took the elders of Israel, and taught them the laws that are before us today:the difference between a thief caught in action and a thief caught few days later. The difference between an ox that gored for the first time, and the one that has attacked before.

So, after Moses taught Israel’s elders these rules and statues, at the end of our portion, God’s glory descended on Mt. Sinai and Moses went up the mountain for 40 days. And it is written in a way that leaves the answer unclear; if this Torah portion comes before or after the event of Mt. Sinai and the giving of the stone tablets.

Yeshua quotes from our Torah portion:

Puts boundaries to our vindictiveness. We are not allowed to hurt the offender unlimitedly, because then, the other side will also respond with vengeance, aggravating the situation even more, and the cycle of violence would continue.This simple commandment of God, limits the cycle of violence to “a draw”, and that’s it.

The New Testament reveals to us yet another possibility. Yeshua says, that yes, you deserve justice, but you do not have to demand the maximum penalty.You can choose to forgive, choose to let go, or choose the merely symbolic punishment.

Yeshua is not teaching us to refrain from protecting our family or our property. On the contrary, we have to do all we can to protect our families, our property or our society! Yeshua does not ask us to forgive the thief or the rapist and to refuse pressing charges against him; quite the opposite! Otherwise, the criminal would go free and will continue hurting others.

Yeshua is talking about personal issues; someone attacked you personally because of who you are, because of your faith, your identity or your race. On personal issues such as these, we can decide to act graciously.

This verse is well known and appears in different versions all through the Scriptures. We are called to be companionate to foreigners, because we also were foreigners and as such, have suffered not only in Egypt, but all over the world.

But what about the criminal, who can hurt others as well?We are familiar with the saying in Judaism:

This saying appeared first in the context of King Saul, who showed mercy to the Amalekites, and disobeyed the commandment to execute them. But later, he got mad at the inhabitants of Nov, and killed them in an exact way; that he was supposed to kill the Amalekites.

That’s where this expression came from, but it is a very deep concept and it is important for our lives and the way we operate.It is relevant because being people of faith, we tend to hush problems and scandals of all sorts; theft, abuse, sexual harassment. It is not only “us”, but also large churches.

Many other organizations often silence up scandals, keep such offences quiet; offences against children, women, and innocent people.

Partially, we hush scandals to keep the dirty laundry from being aired outside. Especially, in case it can stain the entire community, or the church or congregation.Another reason, is to minimize damage to others. Especially if we are talking about the group leader, a famous pastor or a rabbi. There is fear, that if such a story will be known outside, others will get hurt, and the credibility of the entire organization can be damaged.

And sometimes, people have the tendency to forgive, to give another chance, not to report to the police, not to embarrass publicly, understanding that we all sin and we all deserve a second chance. We sometimes think we all tend to fall, here and there. But this is exactly where the phrase comes from:

If we do not report a sexual assault, or if we allow a person, who make those of opposite sex uncomfortable, to stay in our community, in our congregation, then who are we helping and who are we hurting?

If we know that a certain person is using others for financial or material gain, but we turn the blind eye to it, then who are we helping and who are we hurting?We have to do the utmost to protect family and the members of our community.

Moving on, in this Torah Portion, we find a demand for a fair trial. Being sensitive is good and important. Being merciful is good and important, but the demand of our Torah Portion, the demand of God, is to disregard the person’s so-called misery, and to examine the findings in a real and objective way and to deliver justice.We are not allowed to pity the perpetrator, even if he is poor and unfortunate. It is natural to have pity on him, as It is written:

These verses approach the issue from both directions. Not to give preference to the rich and the powerful on one hand, and not to pity the poor and unfortunate on the other, but to deliver true justice.

Sometimes the rich and powerful are let off the crime. They hire expensive lawyers who clear them from all guilt. They, the rich and powerful, receive unbelievable tax reductions, when we – the average folk, suffocate under taxes and tolls. The small businesses suffer, when large ones make a profit on our behalf.

It’s interestingly that when a wealthy and influential person will come to pray with us, we invite him to sit upfront, at the place of honor; we show him respect.James warned us of such behavior, saying:

The New Testament teaches that in the eyes of God all people are equal; men and women, Jews and non-Jews. All are equal in the eyes of God, and no man is worth more than the other.

The desire to have mercy is built into our character. We want to justify the poor and it is easy to side with the ‘underdog’. We often identify the unfortunate as the one who is right. It happens in civil and family courts, we see the poor and weak as the ones who are right, regardless to the truth.

As the world looks at Israel and the Palestinians, they see that Israel is strongand perhaps that is why we are seen us as the aggressors. That is why the world supports them – the ‘underdog’, regardless of the truth.

The law must be true and just. And yes, we are required to be companionate, but at the same time to look at the cold facts objectively, in order to come to the true and just decision. We can’t be blinded by the wealth, power and influence of the strong, nor let pity justify the guilty.

I would like to conclude with the idea of domestic peace. Luckily, in our congregations, we are rarely dealing with sex-offenders and thieves.

Most of our problems are limited to disagreements and family peace keeping and problems with our neighbors; small problems, that can’t always be solved in court.In these situations, Yeshua asks from us:

In our Torah Portion we find the of same idea:

Our Rabbis tell us a story of two guys, who hated each other, and the donkey of the one, fell under its load, and his rival saw the donkey of his enemy falling under a heavy load. But he chose to keep the commandment and to help his rival.

The two enemies had to work together, had to help each other in getting the heavy load off from the donkey. They had to split the load, and put half on the donkey of the first guy, and another half on the donkey of the second guy.

Now, working together made them into friends instead of enemies, caused them to like each other instead of hating.This is exactly what Yeshua is asking us to do, to see the troubles or hardships of others on our way, and to stretch out a helping hand.