Judaism and Reproductive Rights
Jan 28, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Mishpatim
At the end of August 1993, I joined some 100 religious leaders of a moderate stripe who were invited by the President and First Lady for breakfast at the White House. What gave the event an added dose of excitement for me was the good luck to be seated at the President’s table.
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The Ethereal and the Material
Feb 17, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Mishpatim
Parashat Mishpatim records the pinnacle of closeness between God and people. After the Ten Commandments (last week) and a catalogue of other civil and ethical laws, Moses affirms the covenant by sacrificing animals and dashing their blood against an altar. “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadav and Avihu (two of Aaron’s sons) and seventy elders of Israel ascended; and they saw the God of Israel; under his feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity.” (Exodus 24:9—10). What do the people do immediately after experiencing this sublime revelation? They head for the bagels and whitefish!
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The Ear that Heard
Feb 25, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Mishpatim
Parashat Mishpatim opens appropriately with laws concerning slavery. Having achieved their freedom after 400 years of bondage, the Israelites are instructed regarding the laws concerning Hebrew slaves. Why is Torah so quick to speak of these particular mitzvot at the outset of the Israelite journey? All too often, freed slaves are quick to become the oppressor. And Torah is consistently vigilant vis–à–vis this danger. The Israelites are encouraged to remember their experience and recount it to future generations; yet, at the same time, they must remember their status as strangers.
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Society and the Stranger
Feb 5, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Mishpatim
Sensitivity to the plight of the stranger stands at the core of Parashat Mishpatim. With debates raging over migrant workers in the United States and the treatment of foreign laborers in Israel, our Torah reading could not come at a more appropriate time. Just a few weeks ago, the Jerusalem Report ran a cover story on the plight of the foreign–worker community in Israel.
Making a Vision into a Reality
Feb 21, 2004 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Mishpatim
Words can be similar but carry different connotations. “Legal” has a good connotation. “Legalistic” does not. Judaism is often accused of being too legalistic. This charge has been leveled not just at the Judaism of the Talmud and subsequent law codes, but also against many of the laws enumerated in the Torah itself. Too often, there is a tendency to take the Ten Commandments (found in last week’s parasha) as the only commandments.
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Creation and Liberation
Feb 1, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Mishpatim
Why do we observe Shabbat rest? The most common response to this question is learned from last week’s Torah portion: we rest on Shabbat, because God rested on Shabbat. Thus, Shabbat becomes a “remembrance of Creation.” The law of Shabbat in the Ten Commandments highlights the connection between Shabbat and Creation:
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:9–11).
Seeing Revelation
Feb 9, 2002 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Mishpatim
The conclusion of this week’s Torah portion raises a profound question about the nature of Revelation. Was the revelation at Sinai an auditory or a visual experience? According to the book of Deuteronomy, the answer is quite clear: “You came forward and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with flames to the very skies, dark with densest clouds. The Lord spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape — nothing but a voice” (Deut. 4:11).
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Justice and Capital Punishment
Feb 21, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Mishpatim
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the spiritual leader of Palestinian Jewry in the disordered decades after the Bar Kokhba rebellion (132-135 C.E.), firmly believed that, “The world rests on three things: On justice, on truth and on peace, as it is written (Zechariah 8:16) ‘With truth, justice and peace shall you judge in your gates.'” (Pirkei Avot 1:18). His pronouncement was clearly a vision for reconstituting a society wrecked by the havoc of war. The precondition for a peaceful civil society was a system of administering justice on the basis of truth. A viable body politic needed a corpus of laws drafted equitably and applied fairly.
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