Parashat Mishpatim – 5785

Promises, Promises

A D’var Torah for Parashat Mishpatim

By Rabbi Greg Schindler (AJR ’09)

While last week’s Torah portion is so famous that they made a movie about it (something with Charlton Heston), this week’s parsha – Mishpatim or “Laws” – has a very different flavor. This week, we get – count ‘em – 53 different laws on a vast array of topics. They include the treatment of servants, betrothal of handmaidens, insults, injuries, theft, loans, false witnesses, bribery, return of lost animals, land usage, festivals and many more.

Then, after 80-something verses of laws, we get the following line

(Exod 23:18-20 ): https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.23.18-20?lang=bi&aliyot=0–

“I am going to send an angel before you to protect you on the way, and to bring you to the place that I have designated.”

Wait…what?!

You’re sending an angel before us? Where did that come from? It’s like reading the U.S. Federal Tax Code and coming across a line from Harry Potter.

Now that it has our attention, the Torah tells us a little more about this angel:

“Pay heed to him and obey him. Do not defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since My Name is in him; but if you obey him and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.” (Exod. 23:20-24)

Who is this mysterious angel? Commentators offer all sorts of suggestions – it’s Moses, it’s the Torah, it’s G-d.

According to the Ramban,[1] we will hear about this angel two more times. (Ramban to Exod. 23:21) The first is after the golden calf when G-d says to Moses, “See, my angel will go before you.”  (Exod. 32:34) But Moses fears that this intermediary will evidence a breach in the relationship: “How shall it be known that Your People have gained Your favor unless You go with us?”  To which G-d replies, “I will also do this thing you have asked.” (Exod. 33:16-17) During Moses’s lifetime, the promise of G-d’s direct leadership was in effect  But, in the time of Joshua, the angel promised in this week’s parashah finally appears:

Once, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him, drawn sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and asked him, “Are you one of us or of our enemies?” He replied, “No, I am captain of the Legions of G-d. Now I have come!” (Josh. 5:13-14) [2]

It took 40 years, but the promise of an angel – like it or not – was fulfilled.

The fulfillment of G-d’s promises is a thread woven throughout the fabric of the Torah, starting with the promises made to Abraham:

·        “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great,

And you shall be a blessing.” (Gen. 12:2)

·        “I give all the land that you see to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, then your offspring too can be counted.” (Gen. 13:14)

·        “Your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.” (Gen. 15:13-14)

Early in Moses’ prophetic career, G-d tells him something very curious: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My Name ‘Yud Heh and Vav Heh’” (Exod. 6:3) This four-letter Name of G-d is now often referred to as “Hashem” – “the Name.” But a quick perusal of the Book of Genesis shows that the Name “Hashem” was used with the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. What gives?

Rashi explains what G-d means:

“I was not recognized by them in My attribute of “keeping faith”, by reason of which My name is called Hashem, which denotes that I am certain to fulfill My promise, for, indeed, I made promises to them but did not fulfill them.” (Rashi to Exod. 6:3)

G-d’s promises did not end with the Israelites entering the Land.

Later, in Parashat Nitzavim, Moses convenes the entire assembly and the People are told: “Not with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath, but both with those who are here standing this day before Hashem our G-d and with those who are not here with us this day.” (Deut. 29:13-14). Rashi tells us that “those who are not here” means all the generations that will be in the future. (Rashi to Deut. 29:13-14) Moses then speaks of a time when the People will go astray, and G-d will uproot them from the Land. (Deut. 29:26-27) But then G-d makes a promise to future generations:[3]

“When all these things befall you—the blessing and the curse …, and you return to your G-d Hashem, and you and your children heed G-d’s command with all your heart and soul… then your G-d  Hashem will restore your fortunes and take you back in love… Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there your G-d Hashem will gather you, from there will fetch you. And your G-d Hashem will bring you to the Land that your ancestors possessed, and you shall possess it; and [G-d] will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your ancestors.”  (Deut. 30:1-5)

So where are these promises now? Are they still in effect?

Our liturgy seems to assume that they are.

·        At the Passover seder we say:

“Blessed is the One, Who keeps G-d’s promise to Israel, blessed be G-d. For G-d foretold the end of the bondage to Abraham at the Covenant of Sacrifices…

This promise made to our ancestors also holds true for us. For more than one enemy has risen up to destroy us; in every generation there are those who rise against us and seek our destruction. But the Holy One, blessed be, saves us from their hands.”

·        And each morning in the Shaharit prayers before the Amidah, we say:

“ צוּר יִשְׂרָאֵל- Rock of Israel, arise to the aid of Israel, and liberate, as You have promised, Judah and Israel. Our Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Hashem Master of Legions[4].”

The fulfillment of promises entails a worldview of progress. As R. Ismar Schorch writes, “Judaism develops a linear concept of time as opposed to a cyclical one and sanctifies events rather than places… Time becomes for Judaism the realm in which humanity and G-d join to complete together the work of Creation.”

What would it look like when humanity and G-d “join to complete together the work of Creation”?

·        Isaiah describes it as the time when:

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb… Nothing evil or destructive shall be done on My Holy Mountain. For the land shall be filled with knowledge of Hashem as water covers the sea.” (Isa. 11.6-10)

·        Zechariah’s prophecy is familiar to us from the Aleinu prayer:

“And Hashem shall be sovereign over all the earth; in that day Hashem shall be One, and Hashem’s Name shall be One.” (Zech. 14:9)

So I ask you – Are we moving forward and joining with G-d to complete the work of Creation?

The Prayer for the State of Israel (composed in 1948) refers to Israel as, “The first flowering of our redemption.”  According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (z”l), this means:

“[Israel’s founding ] was not merely an event in secular history. It was the fulfillment of the prophetic vision–first stated by Moses in the quoted verse from Deuteronomy–that Israel would one day be gathered from “the furthermost lands under the heavens,” an astonishingly precise prediction of what actually happened.” (Koren- Sacks Siddur, p. 522-3)

While we should be careful in mapping Biblical promises to historical events, we should also consider the facts:

·        Only a few years after one of the greatest tragedies in Jewish history, the State of Israel was founded and its existence ratified by the slimmest of margins in the U.N.

·        After nearly 2,000 years, a Jewish homeland was reestablished.

·        Despite repeated attacks against the nascent state, Israel has continued to thrive.

·        The number of people living in the State of Israel has grown from 800,000 in 1948 to nearly 10 million today.

·        Jews have truly arrived from the ends of the earth, including:[5] India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, China, Iraq, Yemen, South Yemen, Russia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Algeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Austria, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Norway,  Denmark, Bulgaria, Belgium, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Yugoslavia (former), Greece, UK, Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia (former), France, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Central America, Argentina, USA, El Salvador, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia, and Canada.

·        Some say more people study Torah today than ever before: the attendance record at New Jersey’s Metlife Stadium (93,000) was set in 2012 at a celebration of the completion of the seven and a half year cycle of Talmud learning and the Israeli government supports over 350,000 Torah students annually.

While we may not know if we are living in the footsteps of the Messianic Era, why not live “As If”?

·        As If the times in which we are living are special.

·        As If – as promised to Moses and experienced by Joshua – G-d’s angel will lead us if we heed G-d’s words.

·        As if G-d’s promise in Deut. 30 applies, and G-d will restore us in love, if only we return to G-d with heart and soul.

·        As if, in the words of Maimonides, the world is evenly balanced between righteousness and guilt, and our next action can tilt the scales and bring salvation. (Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:4)

Most of us are too busy with daily living to even attempt to see a picture as big as the fulfillment of Gd’s promises. It can be like the story of the two guys trudging through the Sea of Reeds: One guy turns to his buddy and says, “Nu? In Egypt we had mud, and here we have mud.”

The Torah may end with the People poised to enter the Land, but that is not where the story ends. In order to create the society envisioned by the Torah, the People need a Land. And what will that Land look like? Will there be angels flying around and manna from heaven?

As Rabbi Sacks tells us:

“According to the third-century Babylonian teacher Shmuel, “The only difference between this world and the messianic age is subjection to foreign powers” (Berakhot 34b). In this view Israel’s independence was in itself a redemptive moment, a return to Jewish self-determination, self-government and self-defense under the sovereignty of G-d alone.” (Koren- Sacks Siddur, p. 522-3)

There are two types of freedom – freedom from and freedom to. Last week, we read about freedom from slavery. This week, we read about freedom to create a just and righteous nation.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] R. Moses ben Nachman, Spain, c.1246 – c.1286

[2] Note the similarities between Joshua’s experience with the angel and Moses experience at the Burning Bush. In both cases, they are surprised by the Divine encounter, are told to remove their sandals from their feet for they are standing on holy ground, and hide their faces. (Exod. 3:2-8)

[3]  Note the repetitions of the Name “Hashem”, indicating the fulfillment of promises.

[4] “Hashem of Legions” is written as ‘צְבָאוֹת ה This word,  צְבָאוֹת , is the same word used by the angel in Joshua’s time. “אֲנִ֥י שַׂר־צְבָֽא־ה” – I am the Captain of the Legions of Hashem.

[5] https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/publications/doclib/2018/4. shnatonimmigration/st04_04.pdf

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/population-of-israel-1948-present

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Rabbi Greg Schindler (AJR 2009). While at AJR, he was honored to serve as President of the Student Association. He is a community rabbi in Westport, CT where he conducts classes in Talmud and Tanakh. He has led Children’s High Holiday services for over 20 years. Each year, he writes and directs a new Yom Kippur comedic play based on the Book of Jonah , including “Jonah-gan’s Island”. “Batmensch”, “SpongeJonah SquarePants”, “Horton Hears an Oy” and more.