Mishpatim: Laws are Important

וְאֵלֶּה הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר תָּשִׂים לִפְנֵיהֶם

"And these are the laws that you shall set before them."

In this week's portion, the Torah describes a long series of laws. Among these laws, are some that seem quite specific, and at first glance seem to have very little to do with our daily lives. Why does God preoccupy Himself with exactly what happens when an ox gores someone else's ox? And why does the Torah, the Mishna and the Talmud spend page after spend going into the intricacies of such cases, for example whether or not the animal was known to be dangerous from beforehand, who owned the ox to begin with, the value of it, etc.? Aren't there more important philosophical ideas we should be focusing on, such as the meaning of life, our purpose on earth?

The Talmud relates that when Moshe ascended to heaven, the ministering angels protested, to the extent that Moshe was afraid that he would be burnt up by them. God told Moshe to "take hold of His Throne of Glory," and answer their protests. Moshe responded them by asking the angels a series of related questions, many of which referred to our specific earthly conditions: The Torah states, "I am the L-rd Your G-d Who took you out of Egypt" - were you in Egypt? The Torah states, "You shall have no other gods besides Me" - do you live among nations that worship idols?  "Remember the Shabbos and keep it holy" - do you do any physical work?  It says, "Honor your father and mother"  - do you have a father and mother?, and many other such questions. The angels then agreed that the Torah should be given to the Jewish people. (For a quick link to a full translation to this story, click here.)

The Torah is all about our experiencing God through the physical world. The Tanya, one of the most reknowned works of Chassidic thought, goes as far as saying that it is exactly in this world that we experience God to the fullest extent. The Talmud teaches that in the World to Come, Tzadikkim will sit with their crowns and benefit from the rays of the Divine Presence (the "Schinah"). The author of the Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (the first rebbe of Lubavitch, also known as the "Alter Rebbe" or "Baal haTanya"), says that they this means that we experience only the "rays" of the Schinah, but not the Divine Presence itself. To be able connect to God Himself, not just the rays, both intellectually and experientially, that's only in this physical world of ours. We do so by learning God's laws, and putting them into practice.

As we learn the Torah and its laws, we gain insight into God's thoughts. From oxen, fences, fires, and pits, we learn fundamental principles that gives us a lense into understanding the meaning life itself. By putting these laws and commandments into practice, we connect directly to God -  the word "mitzvah" (commandment) comes from the word "tzavsa," connection.

One might ask, does God really care about some "small" commandment or application of justice? Those influenced by Greek philosophy might say that God has more important things to worry about, like the cosmos. The truth is that God cares A LOT. He is worried and He is involved. One need only take a brief look at the exclamations of the prophets to see how much He cares about His laws and about justice. 

Justice has a special importance in Judaism. We learn from the Ethics of our Fathers that without justice the world could not continued to exist. (Pirkei Avot 1:18)  Establishing courts of justice is even one of the seven universal Noachide laws, that applies to not just to Jews.

We see that we pray for justice three times a day in the Amidah (Standing prayer). The Amidah, also known as the Shmoneh Esreh, named after its 18 blessings (actually 19, but that's a separate discussion), is the culmination of each of our daily prayers. In each of the blessings we declare God's greatness and ask for His continued involvement: He gives us knowledge, pardons our sins, redeems us, heals us, blesses our fields, rebuilds Jerusalem - interestingly, almost all the prayers describe an action by God.

However, there are two blessings that do not describe God's actions, but rather His feelings. We don't bless God because He makes us repent. We bless God because He wants us to repent. Repentance is something that we have to do on our own. Similarly, we don't say that God "creates" justice - we bless God because He is a King that loves justice. We know that ultimately God is the King, and that His justice is constant and absolute. We might not always understand this justice, given our very limited capacity, and "accounts" we don't see, such as previous and future reincarnations, as well as the World to Come. Nevertheless, despite God's absolute justice, He also expects us to implement justice on our own. He won't do that for us either.

As we enter the month of Adar, this is also related to the idea of Purim, and the destruction of Amalek. The portion that speaks of Amalek in the book of Deuteronomy (which we will read in about two weeks) comes right after God's demand that we use "just weights." Amalek represents the ultimate injustice, as well as the belief that God does not rule the world. The Torah tells us the the Throne of God is not complete until Amalek, and everything it represents, is utterly destroyed. God loves justice, and He wants us to pursue it. “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20)

And yet, for the Jewish people, it's not just only a general concept of justice that we are looking for. Rashi comes to explain why is it necessary to say "before them?" Who else would it be for? Rashi says "before them but not before gentiles." Even if you know that they [gentiles] judge a certain law similarly to the laws of Israel, do not bring it to their courts, for one who brings Jewish lawsuits before gentiles profanes the [Divine] Name..."

It's important to remember that in a conflict between Jews, even if secular law's outcome would be the same as the Torah's, we're supposed to apply the Torah's laws from beginning to end. That's because Torah involves a conception of justice tha goes beyond our man-made laws. After all, we're interested in learning and applying God's thoughts, and it is only in this world that we can learn to appreciate them.

For more on the difference of man-made laws and God-given laws, and how they relate to the Environment, check out "Olhar Ecologico Atraves do Judaismo," available at ModernJewishHome.com here.

PS: Among the laws we learn about this week is the fundamentally misunderstood law about "an eye for an eye." An eye for an eye does not mean one is supposed to poke the defendant's eye out. That would be extremely barbaric. The Talmud thoroughly explains that Torah is speaking about monetary compensation. So why does the Torah write "an eye for an eye" in that way? That's because there's a lesson to be learned about the gravity of the sin committed, but our Merciful God would never demand such a thing.