Mishpatim

Improving society via the creation of legal frameworks is not a 'secular' activity, it is a very spiritual goal in Judaism (as per this week's Torah portion.)

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To understand this, it helps to be familiar with the two founding figures in Judaism, Abraham and Moses.

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Abraham. His negation-of-self in providing for his guests convinced God that Abraham was the right choice, that he really understood that the path to Godliness was via caring for God's image - humanity.

God had promised him descendants, and when God now spoke ofthe imminent birth of a son (Isaac) it was as part of the command to found a nation not just a family-clan - a nation with a constitution, including laws about justice and charity (see the passages in that story). As developed in this week's portion, we see that notion means a people in their own land, and living real life, raising families and constructing schools and having to adjudicate disputes between neighbors, in a just manner, and much else that might seem to some to be 'mundane' rather than 'religion'.

Moses: After a non-physical sojourn on the mount for 40 days and nights, directly communing with God, Moses descended and spent most of his time not in meditaiton and 'spiritual' contemplation of God but rather (as seen from the story of Yitro, his father in law) in adjudicating disputes between ordinary people . And he taught the laws of proper societal functioning to all. All this was part of the holy spiritual communication from God to Moses on Sinai - in other words according to Judaism, working to establish harmonious operation within a nation is real spirituality.                                                                               .

To phrase it a bit differently: What God asked of the Jewish People was not to establish a 'religion' per se but a civilization, including - as outlined in this week's portion - a court system based on just laws, as well as agricultural procedures etc. 

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The spiritual 'theory' behind this: Perhaps it can be framed as follows: God's presence shines forth most when humans - each being a sort of ''embodiment' of the divine spirit - interact appropriately, and so creating a system of true justice, and medical care, education etc, brings about a revelation of the divine.

 Abraham and Moses's understanding of this idea made the civilizational rules given to Moses and to the Jewish People at Sinai a seamless combination of jurisprudence, ritual and spirituality. 

Also: Hearing "thou shalt not steal" etc directly from God (as part of thr 10 commandments) made abiding by this prohibition organically spiritual - and according to Tradition all Jews of future times wer epresent as souls to hear the commandments. 

And so perhaps this is the reason that if one is present when children in a 'cheder' (Orthodox school for young children) are taught the laws of "when your ox gores the ox of your neighbor" in the mishna and talmud (based on this week's portion), one might feel the edges of a spiritual glow in the faces of those children.

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Religion and self-perfection: God crafted a distinctly physical universe, with very flawed individuals - here perhaps I should speak only for myself :) - and what God desires of us is not to be perfectly by keeping all the rulkes all the time to the maximum - which is impossible given how God created us - but rather to strive towards being the best we can, and for a human it is that striving which constitutes being perfect. 

And God asks us not to think of religion as only worshiping and praising God or seeking spirituality in the abstract, but also as the perhaps much more difficult task of behaving justly and with compassion as per the 'mundane' laws in this week's Torah portion, which is an indispensible aspect of the path to achieving the state of "cleaving unto God".        

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May we be blessed to have the inner strngth to always seek justice with compassion, and to be appropriately charitable, and hope that as reward we will feel not just ethically-correct but also feel a spiritual uplift, since right-action towards God's image - especially when we need to lower our own ego and self-concern to behave apropriately - results in a manifestation of some measure of the divine presence, since that is the essence of every human being, and it is revealed when we lower that which 'blocks' it, our ego.

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Chumash: Vort: Mishpatim spoke at Machlis x 2 and a bit at Brodt: theme of lower ego and veahavta lereacha bringing level of nevuah, but at a communal level rather than individual 

Night: (Eng/Heb): Again theme of lower ego and veahavta lereacha bringing level of nevuah, but at a communal level rather than individual 

at end of parsha b yisrale have great mystical vision (saw 'elokei yisrael...sapir...". Not comprehensible pasuk. But what brought them to that level?

Answer: that they said naaseh venishmah. 

How did they get to that? 

M"R read sefer habris to them and they answered N ve N. 

What was in S Habris? From breishis until end yetzias mitzrayim, And presumably mishaptim. The beginning of mishpatim stresses social justice, not taking advantage of the weaker etc, so when they were presented with the s habris they were asked whether they will accept all this, starting from breishi, that all humans are tzelem elokim and breath of God, and the end of the reading was mishpatim, what the ramificaitons of this are for how one needs to treat people; and if not, Mishpatim says that god will destroy you (when the widows and orphans cry out for justice).

So what enabled the B Y to say they would accept this requirement of ego reduciton upon themselves? They first went inside themselves and lowered their ego, their desire to take, to have, to take advantage of the weaker, and be ready to help the weaker; this necessitated a real inner change; and only when they had lowered their ego could they commit to undertaking this, with the concommitant punishment for violating it, and promise N v N.

And when they did all this (the ego-lowering and the acceptance of basically ve

ahavta lereacha kamocha) the result was the nevuah. 

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Day: (Heb): vayir'u et elokei yisrael..vayochlu vayishtu.: 

ro'im et hakolot teaches us that roim is not to be understood in usual way. 

Earlier in parsha says 'bring it to elohim' meaning dayanim/court, so this indicates that elokei yisrael is not to be understood simply (and same in earleir parshiyot, god tells m"R atah tihyeh elhim lepharo ve aharon achicha yihye neviecha). 

Then "vayochlu vayishtu". nyeh zhuritse chlopsi" means that all longing is actually that of the soul. Great atmosphere at shabbos meal shows it is not about eating, food, but rather eating/food is actually an expression of the soul's longing to be closer to god etc. 

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At Brodt he mentioned other russian song 'marko' and didnt really explain it, so it was opposrtunity, I said the above in very condensed form

Mishpatim

22:20: “Don’t oppress gerim, because you were gerim in Egypt”. (repeated with some addition in 23:9)

22:20-23: Don’t oppress the widow and orphan ………….or I will make your wives widows and your children orphans”.

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“Don’t oppress gerim, because you were gerim in Egypt”. 

There is no logical necessity, since we do not do everything god did: it is like “rest on the 7th day because I rested”. So what is the special message? ….

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Mentions gerim at all points, and then also when says what to say on holidays “arami oved ovi” etc… mentions gerim again.

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22:24: Implies that usury is only when lending to the poor

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23:15-17: stresses the seasonal/agricultural aspects of the three regalim (Spring = pesach, reaping=shavuot, and harvest=succot)

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23:10-19: talks of the three cycles of 6+1: shmitta = 7 years, shabbos=7 days, the holidays including shavuot and bikurim= 7 weeks (but doesn’t mention seven weeks explicitly)  (see also 34:22)

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