Mishpatim
Exodus 21:1-24:18
Exodus 30:11-16
II Kings 12:1-17
To what extent should a society struggle with the tension between its conduct and doing what the law demands? Parashah Mishpatim addresses this difficult question by examining the problem of slave ownership in the face of injunctions that forbid it. This tension is illustrated by the following story:
Rabbi Israel Vishnitz knocked on the door of the house of a wealthy bank manager who invited the rabbi in. The rabbi sat down and said nothing. After a long period of silence, the rabbi rose to leave. The bank manager asked the rabbi to explain the purpose of his visit.
“I went to your house in order to fulfill a mitzvah.”
“What mitzvah was that?” asked the puzzled bank manager.
The rabbi told him that the Talmud (Yevamot 65b) teaches, “Just as we are commanded to say that which will be listened to, we are also commanded not to say that which will not be listened to.” The rabbi continued, “I went to the house of someone whom I knew would not listen. I refrained from speaking to you in order to fulfill the mitzvah of not saying that which will not be listened to. I have accomplished my mitzvah and now I must be on my way.”
“Well,” said the bank manager, “why don’t you just tell me what the thing is that you are so certain that I will not listen to? Who knows, perhaps I will listen!”
“No,” said the rabbi. “I know that you will not!”
The more the rabbi refused to tell, the more the bank manager persisted in pressing the rabbi to reveal “that which would not be listened to.”
“Very well,” said the rabbi, finally relenting. “In a few days your bank is going to repossess the house of a widow who owes your bank a sum which she cannot repay. I would have liked to ask you to overlook her debt, but I did not because of the mitzvah of not saying that which will not be listened to.”
“What do you expect me to do?” the bank manager asked incredulously. “Surely you realize that the debt is not owed to me personally, but to the bank, and that I am only its manager, not its owner, and…”
“You see, it is exactly as I said all along,” the rabbi interrupted, “that you would not want to hear.”
With that, he ended the conversation and left the bank manager’s home.
But the rabbi’s words found their way into the bank manager’s heart and gave him no rest until he personally repaid the widow’s debt.
The tension between slave ownership and moral principles that frown on that practice is highlighted in Mishpatim: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the strangers, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 23:9).”
The Torah warns against this unsuitable behavior toward a stranger no less than 36 times. No other commandment, not even the commandments to love God or to keep the Sabbath, is referred to as frequently as the injunction, “The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Leviticus 19:34).”
The contrast between the oppression of the poor and the prohibition against improper treatment of them is troubling because Parashat Mishpatim highlights the Israelites’ failure to heed the Torah’s demand for proper treatment of the downtrodden.
Furthermore, Mishpatim provides a reminder that justice may, at times, be at odds with reality. Thus, the spirit of the Jewish mission is the search for the sparks of divinity that make us more human and more sympathetic to the suffering of others.
Indeed, living in any society provides sharp contrasts between the sacred and profane, good and evil, freedom and enslavement, sticking to the letter of the law and being lenient.
But like the banker confronted by the rabbi, we, too, are faced with the law that demands that we meet the challenges, resolve the tensions and transform the paradoxes that work their way into our hearts.