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

Song of Mishpatim

Poetic notes on Parashat Mishpatim*

The time of my liberation is near

I am a slave to an exiled master 

in the hidden state of Benjamin

My slavery is hidden and my family’s is hidden 

in a mystery in the wilderness

I did not enter with a wife into this slavery

She was given to me by my master

I love my enslaved wife and children

whose liberation date is later

How can I leave captivity behind,

if it means leaving the ones I love?

How can I be free without them?

I don’t know what to do

As long as my slave-family belongs to another,

even if he is my brother,

how do they belong to me?

Is this how HaShem feels?

How can slaves be called the children of G-d?

God gave His children favour,

making them the heirs of the world

Adam’s firstborn were found in Egypt

All of Adam's firstborn were cut off there

HaShem put his own firstborn in their place

In every generation the firstborn of Adam

would have inherited the wealth of the world

But the angel of death did not pass over them

Instead, the angel passed over Israel’s firstborn,

because of the doorposts of those homes 

painted with the blood of the Passover lamb

Now the wealth of the world would be redeemed

Now the health of the world would be redeemed

with the redemption of the firstborn of Israel

Although Israel was still a child in the womb

she became the heir of the world,

heir of the old world and the new,

the world that was ending and the eternal world

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 things,

destined to be young masters of mercy 

and 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 is later

The promise of the Jubilee asks my heart:

Should the heir of the world keep slaves?

Should the heir buy 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 Passover

the soul’s liberation was conceived

How can the soul’s eternal birth be achieved?

Should the one whose liberty

would whisper a promise of the freedom of creation itself

choose to remain instead in bondage?

The time of my liberation is near

I don’t know what to do

I love my wife and children,

whose liberation date is later

I will never know what to do

but I will not give up

I will never despair 

I will hope for liberty

to come down from Above

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 escorted the Holy Shechinah of liberty

into the Sabbath Day

That great day will come

The last freed Hebrew man-slave

will be reunited with his Hebrew wife,

the one given to him by his Hebrew master,

and his enslaved family will be freed

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 did not hear the whole judgment of G-d

That ear was pierced as if by a wild golden ox

Hearing the loving whispers of Mishpatim

the ear that was pierced began to heal

There is love found in this world

And there is 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 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 silent 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, though a mark to last forever, 

ever become just a healed scar,

a scar on an ear, a scar on a soul?

Could my soul then

ever become like a Hebrew maidservant, 

redeemed by marriage to a prince of Israel?

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 had been bored in the heart  

of a Hebrew slave is healed,

when all Adam believes in God only,

only as the God who brought Israel up out of Egypt,

out of the house of slavery