Dvar Torah on Parshat Mishpatim

After the giving of the Ten Commandments in last week's parsha, Yitro, we move on to Parshat Mishpatim,  which contains with a veritable potpourri of legal material. The range is tremendous. There are laws about slaves, assault, rape, witches, and murder. There are laws about bad behavior towards parents, various types of property damage, lying and bribery, theft, the Sabbatical year, Shabbat and the three pilgrimage festivals, loving the stranger, judging fairly, kashrut, conquering the land of Canaan, and much, much more. The traditional  understanding is that, following the dramatic giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Siani, the Jewish people are now given a sampler of all the laws of the Torah, as if, as the Ramban says, they were now converting to Judaism and needed to get a quick basic overview of what it's all about.

The parsha begins with the verse ואלה המשפטים אשר תשים לפניהם - "And these are the laws which you shall put before them". This is a deviation from the usual introduction to the communication of Torah law, whch is more commonly "And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying: speak to the Jewish people and tell them...". Here the emphasis seems to be on something other than simply repeating the words of God to the people. It seems to imply something more involved, more complicated, a "putting before them" of this wide range of legal material, rather than a simple communication.

What this "putting before them" means is explained by Rashi, quoting the midrash, in this way:

"The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Moshe: don't think for a moment that you will be able to say, 'I will teach them a chapter or a law two or three times, until they know it well, as it has been taught to me, and I will not go to the trouble of explaining to them the reasons behind the thing and its full explanation'. This is why it says 'which you shall put before them' - like a fully-set table, ready to be eaten on, put before the people."

Rashi would seem to be distinguishing between two types of learning. The one, which Moshe apparently thought he could get away with, is a rote repetition of the laws of the Torah. It entails hard work, and a good memory, and the goal is to get it right, "as it has been taught to me". The second type, which is what God is demanding that Moshe do, would seem to be harder, more complex, and entails delving into the reasons and  explanations behind the laws, not just knowing the basic formal content of the laws themselves. 

It is important to note the accusatory tone which Rashi gives us here: God suspects Moshe of wanting to do it the easy way, to teach the surface information of the Torah and not "go to the trouble" of dealing with deeper explanations and interpretations of the law. Why is God concerned about this? Does He suspect Moshe of being lazy? Of wanting to hide something from the people? I don't think so. I don't think the problem lies with some personality flaw of Moshe's. I think, rather, that God is teaching us something important about the nature of law-givers, teachers, and legal systems. Those who are charged with running a legal system are tempted to aim for blind obedience to the system. They want the populace to have a knowledge of and commitment to the law, to obey it, without opening up a discussion about the whys and wherefores. Therefore, they focus not on deeper meaning, but on surface knowledge and retention. 

This is understandable.  Moshe really, really wants the Jewish people to live up to their part of the covenant with God, to keep the laws of the Torah, and it is quite logical and natural for him to think that the best way to gurantee this is to emphasize a clear and precise knowledge of the details of the law, rather than starting a debate about its reasons, implications, and intent. Such an open-ended  conversation could even prove to be detrimental to the keeping of the covenant. We know that the Rabbis were wary of disccussing the טעמי המצוות - the reasons behind the commandments - as this knowledge could lead to a rationalization on the part of the people about when and how they could perhaps ignore the commandments, or find loopholes around them. Surely a less nuanced, by-the-numbers knowledge of the laws, minus any attempt to understand their underlying rationale, would be  a better, simpler guarantee of blind, unquestioning, obedience. 

God thinks otherwise. He believes that such rote, formalistic, by-the-book knowledge of, and obedience to, the Torah is, in fact, worth far less than a deeper, more complicated understanding. If we are truly to be partners in a covenant with God, that relationship must include our full understanding of and interest in the thought and theory behind that covenant. The Torah is not a to-do list. It is a living literature which we are called upon to interpret, question, internalize, and think deeply about. God, in Rashi's fascinating  metaphor, sees these laws, along with their meanings and rationales, as food, set on a table, ready to be eaten. This image suggests that we are meant to take the Torah in, internalize it, make it our own. The set table suggests an assortment of God's laws and wisdom from which we are meant to choose, which we are meant to savor, enjoy, as one would a fine meal. Eating  here stands for a true, personal assimilation of not just the letter of the law, but its deeper meaning, its spirit, its implications, its smell and taste. 

A fully committed Jew could never simply memorize and then obey the surface of the law. That behavior would fail to create an integrated, truly religious, truly righteous, personality. To create a truly religious personality, a Torah personality, a deeper knowledge of the laws' meaning and message is called for. God askes Moshe to put the Torah before us, like the varied menu at a banquet, not force-feed it to us, so that we can fully appreciate it, choose how we will eat it, and fully enjoy its taste and feel. Like a well-prepared meal there will be different טעמים (ta'amim)- which means both tastes and reasons. We will not simply get a main course - the basic law - and nothing more. We are meant to have the spices and the side dishes - the reasons, meaning, implications - that go along with any well-prepared and presented meal. And, like a good meal, we are meant to enjoy it.

Promoting rote learning, memorization, and blind obedience to a superficially understood system of Torah law, may, at first glance, seem like a powerful tool for enforcing compliance - no questions asked, no explanations given. God demands more of Moshe, and of us. He demands that we really commit to a partnership with God, that we engage in a living relationship with the Torah, that we make the effort to relish it - to take it in, understand it, interpret it, and make it our own.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix