Parashat Mishpatim
From Sanctity to Social Justice: The Message of Mishpatim
By Len Levin
“And these are the judicial rules that you shall set before them.” (Exodus 21:1)
Last week, God’s majesty was revealed in thunder and smoke, proclaiming the cardinal rules that express universal human morality. The rabbis declared that they were broadcast in seventy languages (Midrash Tanhuma), and history corroborates that they have been disseminated to the ends of the earth.
This week, the focus shifts to the prosaic and the particular: What are the rules for a slave’s manumission after six years of labor? If my ox gores your ox, how much compensation is due? If you borrow my animal and it dies, who bears the loss?
Judaism is famously a religion with a great emphasis on law. The word halakhah (from the verb, to walk) could have been translated “the way” (the Jewish Tao, if you will), but it denotes the detailed prescription of the Read More >