Torah Portion Exodus 21.1-24.18 Mishpatim

Torah Portion Exodus 21.1-24.18 Mishpatim


This parsha is called Mishpatim, for laws, because it begins: "These are the rules that you shall set before them:" These are primarily civil laws, but there are a few religious laws. For easy reference, I have sorted the laws into categories, which are not necessarily in order and or in the categories others have used. Below the listing of laws, I will give some explanations from Midrash, from various rabbis and from my own thoughts and experiences. I am not attempting to cover each law.


The physical placement of laws throughout the Torah piqued the interest of the sages. Nachmonides said the placement of this particular group of laws, right after the Decalogue and Revelation at Sinai, proves particular importance. These laws were considered absolutely necessary for an orderly society. Later in Torah we will receive laws regarding the priesthood, family purity, sacrificial offerings, business deals and treatment of the ill or dead.

Also, the laws are deliniated in the text before Moses is called up the mountain to receive them in Exodus 24:12. God said to Moses, 'Ascend to me up the mountain, and be there, and I will give you the tablets of stone, the Torah, and the command, which I have written ... From this, the rabbis deduced that Moses received verbally the whole Tanakh and oral law in summary. Talmud, Barachot 5a: "And Rav Levi bar Chama taught in the name of Rav Shimon ben Lakish: What does the verse mean? Tablets refers to the Ten Commandments. Torah is scripture, the Five Books of Moses. Command is Mishna. Which I have written are the works of the Prophets and other Writings. To instruct thereof is the Talmud. This teaches us that all [the above] were given to Moses from Sinai".

Perhaps God thought that the people would be overwhelmed to suddenly recceive the entire 613 Commandments at once, already written. Or perhaps, since the two stone tablets couldn't have been small, God thought Moses couldn't carry any more! Another reason only these laws were presented here is because Moses had to commit them to memory and teach them orally. This was a man "heavy of tongue"not long ago.

Rabbi Yitz of Temple Beth Israel in Eugene said it is especially important to read the commentary when studying this parsha. The intent of the text is easily misunderstood on a surface reading. When we read of slavery, for instance, we must not make snap judgments. We all come to Torah with the lessons life has taught us and our modern understanding. The commentary opens our minds to other ways of understanding. Rabbi Yitz said studying Torah was not meant to be easy. If we are to grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually, we must challenge ourselves with the text.

Immediately below are the laws presented in this parsha. Further below are explanations.

Worship of God:

1. You shall set aside your first born sons to serve God

2. You shall also set aside the first born cattle and flocks, leaving them with their mothers 7 days and giving them to God on the 8th.

3. You shall be holy and not eat flesh torn by beasts, but must cast it to the dogs.

4. You shall not revile God

5. You shall hold three festivals a year for me, The Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the Harvest and the Feast of Ingathering.

6. Do not offer any leavened item along with blood offerings to God; also do not leave fat lying until morning.

7. Bring the choice first fruits to Temple

Black magic, idol worship:

1. You shall not tolerate a sorceress

2. If anyone engages in idol worship, they will be ostracized. (Steve's text says he shall be ___ but only to God alone)

3. You shall not curse a chieftain among your people.

4. Don't even mention other gods!

Sabbath:

1. Six days you work and on the seventh you will rest - not only along with your ox and ass, but in order that your ox, ass, bondsman and stranger may also rest.

2. Six years you shall gather harvest but in the seventh year even the land is allowed to lie fallow.

Treatment of slaves:

1. Hebrew slaves shall go free on the 7th year, with his wife if he was enslaved with him.

2. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she is treated differently. She must be given the chance to be redeemed within the community rather than cast away and if he marries another, he can not deny her food, clothing or conjugal rights. If he does so, she shall go free.

3. If a man strikes his slave in the eye, blinding him, or knocks out a tooth, the slave shall go free.

4. If a man kills his slave immediately by striking him, the slave must be avenged, but if the slave survives even a day or two, there is no punishment.

Treatment of parents:

1. Anyone who strikes his father or mother - or even insults them shall be put to death.

Kidnapping, violating women:

1. Anyone who kidnaps another shall be put to death.

2. If am man lays with a virgin without paying the bride price, her father may refuse to give her to him as a wife, but the man must pay the bride price whether he gets the girl as a wife or not.

Treatment of others:

1. Do not wrong or oppress a stranger - with the reminder that they were oppressed in Egypt.

2. Do not ill treat any widows or orphans.

3. If you take a poor man's cloak as a pledge that he will pay a debt, you must return it to him at night, or he won't be able to sleep in the cold

4. You must not carry false rumors or join with the guilty to act as a malicious witness

5. You shall not join the powerful in doing wrong

6. You shall neither favor the powerful nor the poor in a dispute

7. If you find your enemy's ox or ass loose, you must still return it him

8. Do not take bribes

9. Do not give false witness so an innocent person dies

10. Let the needy eat of your field, vineyard and olive groves in the 7th year, during which time you must not ather harvest.

Treatment of animals:

1. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

2. If your enemy's ass is overburdened and on the ground, you must help your enemy lighten the load so the ass may stand again.

3. See the Sabbath prohibition against working ox and ass

Maiming, killing or results of street fights:

1. Anyone who fatally strikes a man shall be put to death - unless it were by accident, and then he shall be allowed to flee.

2. Anyone who premeditates and murders another shall be put to death.

3. When men fight and one strikes another, causing him to take to bed, the assailant must pay for the idleness and medical treatment

4. If fighting men push a pregnant woman, who miscarries, the one who pushed shall pay a fine set by the woman's husband. If further damage occurs, the penalty is higher - eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc.

Damage to property or resulting from property:

1. If an ox gores a person, the ox shall be stoned and not eaten, but the owner is not to be held liable unless the ox has previously gored and the owner did not take action. In this case, the owner, too, shall be put to death. If there is a ransom, the owner must pay it. If the person gored is a slave, the owner of the ox has to pay 30 sheckels of silver to the master and the ox is still stoned.

2. If a man steals an ox or sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. If the owner seizes the thief while he is tunneling and beats him to death, the owner is not liable, but if he kills him the following day, he is liable. If the animal is found alive in the thief's possession, he must pay double. If he can not, he must be sold as a slave.

3. If a man digs a pit and does not cover it and an ox or ass falls into it, then the digger has to pay the owner restitution but gets to keep the dead animal.

4. If someone lets his livestock loose long enough for them to graze another's field or vineyard bare, he must make restitution.

5. If someone lights a fire and it consumes grain, he shall make restitution.

6. If property entrusted to another is stolen, and the thief is caught, the thief pays double. But if the thief is not caught, they shall both appear in a court of God. If an animal entrusted to another's care dies or is injured and there is no witness, both parties shall appear before God. If the animal is stolen, the person entrusted with its care has to pay the owner restitution. If the animal was torn by beasts, he has only to bring evidence.

7. If someone borrows an animal from another and it dies or is injured in his care, he must make restitution unless the owner was present when it happened. The owner, is, however, entitled to the fee if the animal was hired.

Assorted other issues:

1. Anyone who lies with a beast will be put to death.
2. Do not delay the first skimming of your vats.

God warned the people to obey the angel he sent to lead them to the Promised Land. He promised that if they obey both Him and His angel, He would be an enemy to their enemy and a foe to their foes. He promised to throw the enemies into confusion and terror, and to cause plague in their midst. He promised that if they detroyed any idols they found and served only God, He would annihilate the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. They must not allow any of these people to remain in their midst, less they be corrupted by them.

He said he would drive the enemies out little by little rather than have the land suddenly be barren. He promised them the land from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of Philistia and from the wilderness to the Euphrates.

If they obeyed, He would bless their bread and water, remove sickness from their midst, allow no woman to go barren or miscarry AND will allow them the full life span, which you will remember, is quite extended over our own. What fabulous promises!!

The Israelites promise, "Everything that God says, we will do and we will hear". We know they later falter, but at that moment, the people chose God as much as He chose them. They agreed to be his Chosen, even though many responsiblities accompany this privilege. The word segulah, which means chosen, is elegantly explained by Samson Rafael Hirsch - " Is it not Israel's unceasing duty to proclaim, through the example of its life and history, Him as the universal Lord and Sovereign? The Bible terms Israel segulah, a particular treasure, but this designation does not imply, as some have falsely interpreted, that Israel has a monopoly on the Divine love and favor, but on the contrary, that God has the sole and exclusive claim on Israel's devotion and service; that Israel may not render divine homage to any other being." Segulah means a property belonging exclusively to one owner. God does not belong only to Israel but Israel belongs to God.

Midrash answers the question why other nations were only required to follow the seven Noahide laws, but Israelites were given hundreds of laws. Midrash tells the story of a doctor who restricted severely the diet of a patient he thought showed promise to get well but allowing the patient for whom he held no hope to eat whatever he liked. Because the Israelites were capable of spiritual purity, they were given laws to regulate every aspect of their lives, to help them attain this purity.

There are quite a few laws regarding slaves, including when to release them, the proper treatment of a girl slave when an owner has tired of her, payment or revenge for a slave that has been killed, etc. Moreover, God says twice not to oppress a stranger, because the Israelites were themselves oppressed and enslaved while strangers in Egypt. Midrash says even when a slave choses to remain with his master, he must state this in front of the Bet Din and in the Yovel year, which is every 50th year, he shall go free anyway. Midrash explains the use of the front door post as the place to pierce the slaves ear thus: God had the Israelites smear blood on their doorposts to show their servitude to God; so must a slave show servitude to his owner. Moreover, the slave must really want to stay in order to endure having his ear bored in public.

Midrash says if a man is very poor and has already liquidated his possessions, only then may he sell a daughter under 12 years old into slavery. It is a mitzvah for the purchaser to either marry her himself or to give her to his son in marriage, thus providing for both the poor father and the girl. The purchase price for the girl becomes her bride price. If neither the purchaser nor his son wants to marry her, and the father has become financially stable, the father must redeem her. Otherwise the girl must be offered for sale again, with the years she served deducted from her bride price. A girl goes free once she has matured, when six years or the Yovel year have arrived, or if her master dies. She does not have the option of having her ear bored on the door post!

Midrash says the laws of capitol punishment for harm done to parents apply to a boy above the age of 13 and a girl above the age of twelve, and only if they have previously been warned and two witnesses can verify the harm done.

The "eye for an eye" punishment is often misunderstood as cruel and unusual. Torah does not intend for someone to literally gore out another's eye in punishment. There are five levels of injury - causing physical injury, causing pain, causing medical expenses, causing absence from work and causing humiliation. The Bet Din calculates how much the injured party's value would be diminished on account of the handicap if he were sold as a slave to perform the same profession. A manual laborer receives more for his hand than an intellectual. Above the payment for physical damage, the aggressor must also pay for pain, medical expenses, financial losses from inability to work and also for shame! Thus, an eye for an eye actually means the value of an eye for an eye.

Midrash says God warned against harming widows and orphans: "A wronged wife is able to complain to her husband and an oppressed son usually calls to his father for help. Since a widow and orphan have no one to defend them, they complain to Me. I will take revenge for every single one of their outcries..." God details a number of punishments, including: "Your wives will become widows for life. They will be unable to remarry because since their husbands will be missing, but their deaths never ascertained; their children for this reason will never be able to inherit their fathers' estates."

Regarding the prohibition against bearing false witness, Midrash clearly states a Judge must remove himself from a case in which witnesses may be lying, even if he can not prove it. Moreover, if he has a colleague he knows is dishonest, he should refuse to try a case with him. Torah uses the word "distance" to emphasize that if one cannot stop it, one must at least show no inclination to participate in it and protect oneself from being close enough to accidentally become embroiled in it. Rabbi Gefen, in Truth and Falsehood on Aish.com, explains well that distancing oneself from falsehood includes not engaging in words and actions that are technically true but intend to deceive.

It sounds totally egotistical of me, but I disagree with Midrash and other forms of "Oral Law" on the subject of mixing milk and meat. Midrash says the reason it is not specifically written in Torah that God did not want us to eat milk and meat together was because God foresaw a time when other nations would try to say they were the chosen people, not the Israelites... And therefore, some commandments could not be written but must be transmitted orally. However, I see that there are many places in Torah where God, who does not expect us to be vegetarians, does expect us to show compassion for the pain of mother animals separated from their babies. Therefore, we do not kill a calf in front of its mother, take eggs or young from a mother bird without shooing her away... or boil a kid in its mother's milk. (During my bet din, this subject came up and one of the judges said I should consider whether or not to eat eggs in the same meal with chicken.)

I raised a variety of goat breeds and know firsthand that does mourn deeply when their kids die. My angoras seemed confused more than anything else, but my pygmies and pygoras would wail. That's right, wail, like human mothers.

Torah makes clear that punishment is much stricter for premeditated crime and is less strict or even lenient when there is no premeditation. For instance, when a thief enters your home if you strike him and kill him, it is like he doesn't even bleed. If you kill another by accident, you may flee to another city. If your ox gores a human and you don't know it may happen...

I am very impressed by the fairness of these laws in comparison to laws of other societies of the time.