Weekly Torah Portion: Mishpatim- "Laws"

Mishpatim (משפטים Hebrew for "laws") is the 18th weekly Torah portion (parsha) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It constitutes Exodus 21:1-24:18.


The text is said to contain 23 positive commandments and 30 negative commandments.

That's a lot of laws...

How can one hope to remember all of these? Remembering and following all 613 commandments is a lifetime project.

For now I ask myself what is the essence of the commandments in question?

Context must also be taken into account. G-d has just brought his people into the wilderness from Egypt... He now gives them rules of social conduct. Many revolve around property rights. What is to be done if I accidentally kill your slave? What is to be done if your ox gores my son? What if your ox gores my son and your ox had a history of goring and you did nothing about it?

For human beings to live in groups in productive ways there must be guidelines.... rules... laws. Without them might is right. The stronger, the smarter can pillage and plunder freely and what is to stop them.

All of this supposes that there is such a thing as right and wrong in social behavior. Although laws and mores evolve with time and social needs some things do not change. There is a thread of right and wrong weaved through the fabric of cultures through time. The trick in reading the social laws of Torah is separating the perennial from the "culture/time bound" (e.g. stoning someone for not keeping the sabbath).

The parshah reads:

Exodus 24:3 And Moses came and told the people all the words of G-d, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said: 'All the words which the L-rd hath spoken will we do.' 4 And Moses wrote all the words of G-d, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

The people seem very quick to accept the ordinances... maybe it was because the rightness of them resonated with the people... Maybe it was because they were still in such awe of what they had witness on the mountain.

It is sobering and comforting to see the laws of my peeps that suggest to us right ways to behave in society. Again, culling them is the tricky part as we no longer stone people for not keeping the sabbath or cursing their parents.