JTS Torah Archive

Law and Justice

Feb 13, 2015 By Martin Oppenheimer | Commentary | Mishpatim

As an attorney, I am fascinated by the code of civil and criminal law contained in Mishpatim. In Egypt, law was made by the Pharoah, who could unilaterally decide the fate of his subjects. All lives and property were forfeit at his whim—as his subjects learned during the course of the plagues, and when the Egyptian army was decimated at the Red Sea. Conversely, Mosaic law focuses on equality and social justice. The poor, the downtrodden, the stranger—even the man whose destitution forced him to sell himself into slavery—were required to be treated with dignity under the law.