Mishpatim, מִּשְׁפָּטִים "Specific Laws" Exodus 21:1 - 24:18

Song of Mishpatim

Poetic notes on Parashat Mishpatim* 5783

The time of my liberation is near

I feel it in my Holocaust-thin soul

The time of the world’s last troubles 

is a great and terrible time

But God is in the consequences

I am a slave in a Babylon, to an exiled Hebrew master

The one who holds the truest measuring instrument is the master

Only the Hebrew holds God’s measuring instrument,

for the measurement of true liberty in this world and that to come

But now the Hebrew master is exiled

and is far outside God’s secure land and home 

My master and I are exiled in an underground nation, 

It is the hidden state of Benjamin

No one can find us

We are hidden in a prepared place in the wilderness 

Even we do not know where we are

Judah has now driven the goyim out of this old Jerusalem

But Benjamin was left lost with Jospeh

My slavery is hidden and my family is hidden

We are encamped in a mystery of the wilderness

I did not enter with a wife and family into this slavery

My wife was also a slave, given to me by my master

I smell my redemption in the dusty wind,

but I love my enslaved wife and children

whose liberation date may well be later

I think I am about to walk out of this servitude with my master,

I believe I will soon be measured by my master to be a free human

But how can I leave my servitude behind,

if it means leaving the ones I love behind?

How can I ever be free without them?

I don’t know how to cross this Red Sea of mine

As long as my family belongs as slaves to another, 

even if the other one becomes my own brother,

how will they still belong to me? or I to them?

Is this how Hashem feels?

So many of his exiled loved ones still remain slaves, 

slaves to the chance rolling of suns and moons and planets 

How can slaves be called the children of God?

God gave His Hebrew children his great favour

He made them the heirs of his world

Adam’s firstborn sons built their fortress in Egypt

And it is there that all of Adam's firstborn were cut off 

God disinherited Adam’s firstborn there in Egypt

from being the heirs of the world 

Hashem wrote his own firstborn into his will

He made his own firstborn to inherit his creation

In every generation the firstborn of Egypt

would have inherited the wealth and power of a universe

This was the way that seemed right to Humanity

But it could have only ended in a final death

Therefore the angel of death did not pass over them

The angel passed over Israel’s firstborn,

because of the doorposts of their homes,

which they painted with the blood of a Passover lamb

Now the wealth of the universe would be redeemed

Now the health of the universe would be recovered

All with the redemption of the firstborn of Israel

Now the final end would be life

Although Israel was still a child in the womb

she became the heir of the world,

heir of the old creation and the new,

the world that was ending and the eternal world coming

As a child conceived but not yet born is given gifts,

so the Jews emptied out Egypt’s pockets

The children of Israel had been slaves

Now they were the heirs of all, heirs of everything,

destined to be young masters of prayer

and as masters of prayer, masters of mercy

and as masters of mercy,

the leaders of liberation for the world

And now the time of my liberation is near

but the liberation date

of my wife and children may be later

The promise of the Jubilee asks my heart:

Should the heir of the world keep slaves?

Should the heir own slaves just to liberate them?

Obedience by Israel to the commandment

to liberate their slaves

liberates the whole creation

In the seventh year before eternity

God liberated the Jewish soul, the poorest soul,

the soul he laid claim to as his own

On the covenant day of the Passover in Egypt 

the soul’s liberation was conceived

Creation was made at first with a temporal soul

How can the eternal birth of Creation’s soul be achieved?

Is there a measure of liberation 

that even for himself my master cannot find

until he liberates me as his slave?

And can I ever know liberty without my wife and children?

Should my Hebrew master, whose liberty would whisper 

a promise of the liberation of creation itself

choose to retain even the unclean stains of  bondage?

No, his desire is to liberate me!

And the time of my liberation is near

But I don’t know how to cross this Red Sea

I don’t know how to enter into this eternal immersion

I love my wife and my children,

whose liberation date may be later

Will I ever know what to do?

I will not give up

I will never despair

I will hope for liberty

to come down from Above for all slaves

Marital love, family love, 

can be intense in this moment

But can it compare with the love that will be felt

in the eternal family?

On the first Shavuot

the Torah heart of the Jubilee,

the heart of the world to come

began to beat ࿀ ࿁ ࿀ ࿁ ࿀

When the Torah heart begins to race

all slavery will be forever forgotten

It will be just as if Adam had never transgressed,

but had escorted the Holy Shechinah of liberty

into the rest of the Seventh Day

That great day will come!

The last freed Hebrew Adam-slave

will be reunited with his Hebrew Eve, 

the one given to him by his Hebrew master,

And his enslaved family from This Time will be freed

And it’s love will be elevated 

into the love of the Eternal family 

There is a scroll in which the Torah was given to Israel 

There is a Jubilee year hidden in a scroll in which Israel 

is given as a gift to the Torah

That scroll will be opened

That Jubilee will come

We wait with the greatest difficulty for that year

When Adam was sentenced to death and poverty,

the human child became an indentured servant

There was an ear that heard and then grew deaf

and then did not hear the whole judgment of God

When that ear would not trust God's judgment,

that ear was pierced as if by a wild golden ox

But finally hearing the loving whispers of Mishpatim,

the ear that was pierced began to heal

Like a mountainside of flowers whose glory is for a moment,

there is a wondrous love in this world that can die

But on another mountain,

there is a transcendent love that can be found in this world

Touched by that transcendent love,

there is a redeemed love found in the world to come

Can I abandon a daughter of Zion

like an empty booth in a vineyard? ࿀ ࿁ ࿀ ࿁ ࿀

If I cannot leave my wife and children behind

can I go to the doorpost

and allow a hole to be bored through my deaf ear?

And could I then hear the voice of Hashem

through that hole in my ear?

The love found in this world cannot free its offspring

The love found in the world to come

was born in the ear that heard ten whispers

and multiplied them into 248 notes of song

with 365 pauses of praise

I ask again, who would hear if I were to sing what I heard 

through a hole bored in my ear?

And could that hole ever become just a healed scar,

a scar for eternity upon an ear, a scar upon a soul?

If my soul had that scar, could my soul then

ever become like a Hebrew maidservant,

redeemed by marriage to a prince in Israel?

I will learn the correction of Adam

I will step into the Red Sea of liberty

and entrust my wife to the hand of my redeemer

So shall the Torah be heard in 613 notations forever,

in notes and pauses,

from the day of the last Shavuot Jubilee, 

when the last slave in Israel and in Adam is set free,

and the hole that was not bored in the ear,

but was bored in the heart of a Hebrew slave is healed,

when all Adam believes in God only,

believes in God of Israel only,

the God who brought Israel up out of Egypt,

out of the house of slavery