What is Fair and What is True

This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, which means ordinances or laws or judgments. It contains a code of civil law that directly follows the Ten Commandments and includes wonderful laws: like the ones that encourage people who have indentured servants to treat them as human being and not as property, that prohibit harm to others through negligence or theft, that provide for interest- free loans to the poor, that prohibit maltreatment of strangers, widows, and orphans, and that encourage people to come to the aid of their enemies, among many other laws. Also, in a spirit of full disclosure, it contains laws that we don’t understand and others that most people don’t agree with.
Twice in this portion it says that God listens to those in pain or in need. The first one says, “You shall not taunt or oppress a stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not persecute any widow or orphan. If you will persecute him! For if he will cry out to me I shall surely hear his cry (Ex. 22:20-22)” And the second one, referring to loans to the poor: …”if you will take your fellow’s garment as security until the sun sets shall you return it to him for it alone is his clothing. It is his garment for his skin. In what should he lie down? So it will be that if he cries out to me, I shall listen for I am compassionate.”
These two quotations give us a window into what it being asked of us. The Torah tells us that there is an ultimate standard of justice that is inherent in the way our world is constructed. The laws in Mishpatim also give us a window into God’s thinking, in a sense. There is a delicate balance in these laws, between what is fair to everyone and what is true. For example, it was true that slavery existed at the time the Torah was given. It is also true that, since there was no consumer credit, that people who found themselves unable to support themselves and pay their bills could sell themselves for a period of six years into indentured servitude. This acted somewhat like our military does today. People can enlist in the army and serve for a period of time while receiving room, board, a salary, and educational opportunities. Of course, this is preferable to indentured slavery, but we can see that both institutions were or are helpful to people, which partially explains why they exist. So God balances what needs to be with the ultimate ideals of justice, and right, and fairness. With our Universal and Divine Parent: no one is favored over anyone else. This is because we are all part of God and live within God. Do we love one of our teeth or one of our fingers more than the others? They are all part of us and we love them (even if we may not like them) equally. When we don’t understand some of the laws in Mishpatim, it’s important to remember what they are trying to accomplish: instilling respect in us; teaching us to treat each other fairly, enlightening us as to what is cosmically and fundamentally true; helping us to live more peaceful, happy lives; and making allowances for social institutions that existed at that time for the good of society. We know that although there may be good laws and there may be courts; well meaning people and honest judges, that justice is not always served. God and the Torah recognizes this too, which perhaps is why there are the quotations I referred to earlier: If you cry out to me I will hear. If there is a wrong, there is a higher authority to appeal to. God says, in another quotation from Mishpatim, “for I shall not exonerate the wicked (23:7),” meaning that ultimate justice rests with God. This is why the Apter Rebbe said, “If one wishes to judge flawlessly, one must put one’s mind and heart in order and realize that the judgment is in the Presence of God who sits among the Judges (p. 65 The Heschel Tradition).” This is true for us too: we should put our minds and hearts in order, realizing that God sees what is happening, knows how we feel and what we think about it, cares about us, about others, and about justice, balances all our claims, loves us all equally, and is the court of highest appeal for those who are injured and in need: the One who insures that goodness overcomes our errors and selfishness. May we do our best to help God in these matters: to make the ideals of Torah manifest in the world – to promote fairness and equity; and may we be grateful for the laws, guidance, and understanding God has allowed us to have and to know.

Bringing Ourselves to the Mountain

This week’s Torah portion is Yitro – named after Jethro, Moses’ Father in Law. Jethro, Moses’ wife, and two sons meet Moses and the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. Jethro advises Moses to establish a system of judges and courts. Moses takes his advice and Jethro departs. The people prepare themselves for the great and terrifying day on which God will speak to them, what we call The Revelation – the only time in human history that God’s words were heard simultaneously by a whole group of people. God speaks the Ten Commandments and subsequently the people become afraid, asking Moses to speak with God and let them know what God requires of them.
The Ten Commandments, which are: I am God, Do not worship idols, Do not take God’s name in vain, Remember the Sabbath, to make it holy, Honor your parents, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not lie about a legal case, and Do not covet are clearly Divine. They are the only code of law that has never been amended, modernized, or superseded in all of human history. They are the minimum that God asks of us, they fit us humans perfectly, and they work: in that they are the recipe for a successful, happy, productive life. But why do they work and how do they work? The sages of the Zohar used to say that it was by means of the Torah that the Holy One created the world (I 5a).It was said that, like an engineer, God had a kind of blueprint, the Torah, by which the world was created. But this can be inverted too: that as part of creation, part of God, the Torah reflects the fundamental structure of reality. The Torah’s moral laws, not just the Ten Commandments, but also such precepts as do not gossip, do not hate; love your fellow as yourself, are not only an accurate portrayal of realty, but that they are in fact embedded in reality, an integral part of the way our world is structured and made of the same stuff. They are inseparable from our reality and they are testable.
I like to think of myself as a Religious Naturalist: in the way Darwin was a naturalist – an observer of nature in order to form theories of cause and effect. I, too, am an observer of cause and effect, but my special interest is not natural law but moral law: the spiritual laws of nature. So if you want to test these 10 commandments, it’s easy. You can keep them and see how things go, or you can choose one and break it, and see how the dysfunction in life occurs. Now I’m not really suggesting that anyone break one of the Ten Commandments, but in looking back on our lives, most of us can see how things we’ve done in the past which have transgressed the Torah’s moral precepts have not worked out well. They created hardship or a breakdown in our lives; an interruption in the flow of blessings. This means that these commandments are not just laws of society but are truths: a part of Divinity itself – a part of God and nature: not matter, not energy, but an explanation of the interaction of matter and energy: a key to us, and life, and God. If this is so, then all the Torah’s moral laws have the power to unlock love and goodness in our lives. This is the essential Jewish spiritual path.
In this week’s portion it says: “You have seen what I did to Egypt and that I carried you on the wings of eagles and brought you to me. (Ex. 19:4)” The Ten Commandments are the bringing. God brought us to Mt. Sinai and set us down gently and lovingly, giving us actual Divinity to grapple with in the guise of the Ten Commandments. We bring ourselves to God by living in accordance with these life giving laws: life giving because being made of Divinity by our Creator, they actually create more life and goodness. The Zohar says: (II:83a-b) Then the Divine word descended from heaven, being on its way engraved upon the four winds of the universe; and then rose once more and again descended. When it rose up it drew from the mountains pure balsam and was watered with the heavenly dew, and when it reached this earth it encompassed the Israelites and brought them back their souls. This mutual bringing: of us to God by God and of we ourselves approaching God is for the purpose of bringing unification of our souls with God and each other; and of bringing blessings not just to ourselves but to the entire world by exposing ultimate truth and allowing it to come into human understanding. Our task is to realize that we can bring ourselves to a holy place and be a bridge between earth and heaven. We are of the same stuff as the Torah and God. As the Chassidic sages said, “God, the Torah and Israel are all one.” Holiness is God’s gift to us through our being alive. The Torah is the blueprint for our growth into that holiness. May we recognize the holiness we have been blessed with, and may we bring ourselves forward to encounter our own Divine souls on our unique Jewish spiritual path.