MISHPATIM 1991

In the Torah portion Mishpatim that before the Jewish people accepted the Torah G-d gave them a sample of the Torah.  These were the laws that were stated in this Torah portion.  It is interesting to note that 90% of them have to do with the laws between man and man, how we are to treat each other justly and correctly and honestly and how we are to treat each other with dignity and respect.  It says, "And Moshe came and he told to the people all these words of G-d and all the laws, and the people answered with one voice and they said, 'All the things which G-d spoke we will do'."  Then it says how Moshe wrote all these words of G-d, these things of G-d, and he got up early in the morning and he went and built an altar under the mountain and 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel.  Then we learn, too, how he took the book of the covenant, and the rabbis say these were the laws that were in this Torah portion, and he called into the ears of the people and they said, "All which G-d spoke we will do and we will understand."  Notice that the people before had already said they were going to do the laws.  Now they said they would also understand them, because it is not really enough just to do things.  You have to really understand what you are doing.

Judaism, as we all know, stresses deed over creed.  It is more important what you do than what you say you are going to do or what you believe in.  What is important is what you do, so a person can understand all about a particular charity he is giving to and he can understand how it works and how the money is going to go to the poor and he can investigate its officers and see that there is no graft and corruption, and then he can think about how much he is going to give.  Until he actually writes that check he has not really fulfilled the mitzvah even though he has spent many hours and maybe even days and weeks investigating the charity.  On the other hand, someone else could just write a check, and the moment he writes the check he has a mitzvah, although we all know there is a connection between what you believe in and what you are going to do, but it is not always an absolute connection.  If people do not believe in democracy then, of course, they are not going to vote, but many times we do believe in democracy but we are lazy.  We do not go and vote.  In fact, it is very interesting to note that the United States government and the philosophy of the United States is very similar to Judaism.  What counts is what you do, not what you believe.  You can say you believe anything as long as you obey the law.  That is all we care about.  Of course, it is a lot of harder to obey the law if you do not really believe in it, so there is a connection but the connection is ambiguous and nebulous, and the most important thing is what you do.  We in Judaism know that the most important thing is what you do.  You can think about all the mitzvahs you want, you can understand 100% about how to put on tephillin and how tephillin are made and what part of a cow the tephillin come from and what type of animal the tephillin have to be made from, etc., but until you put on tephillin you have not done the mitzvah.  We know that the most important thing is deed.  Deed is more important than creed.

In the very beginning the Jewish people said they would do, but later on they also knew that they had to understand them because if they do not understand them they do not understand how they relate to life and how they cause them to have a better relationship with G-d and man, and many Jews will not do them.  That is, of course, why many Jews do not come to shul to pray because they cannot see how Jewish prayer causes them to come into contact with G-d and man, especially many Jews who have gone to public schools and in public school, at least 20 or 30 years ago, they taught people how to pray and the way they taught people how to pray was not the Jewish way of how to pray.  Therefore, there is a connection between how you understand life and what you do.  The connection is not absolute, though.  The most important thing is, are you obeying the law?  If you are obeying the law we leave you alone no matter what you say you believe.  That is similar to Judaism.

The truth of the matter is that in many areas Judaism and America are very, very similar.  That is, of course, why the Jews have a hard time maintaining themselves in America because there are so many similarities.  In America today we do not follow democracy.  Democracy in the classical Greek sense means the rule of the majority and in America we are not a democracy because we do not follow the rule of the majority.  We are a limited democracy.  Only in certain areas of life do we follow the rule of the majority.  For example, if the majority of people would decide that I have to follow a certain religion, I do not have to follow that religion.  If the majority of people decide that I cannot read certain newspapers, I can still read those newspapers.  We have freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion.  The police cannot come into my house anytime they want even if the majority of people in America think that they should.  Even if the majority of people in America think that it is wrong to burn an American flag they cannot stop me from burning the flag.  That is what the Supreme Court recently said.  The reason for that is the rule of the majority is not absolute in America.  We have a limited democracy.  This is what makes America great because in America we cannot tell the individual what to do in certain areas even if it is the will of the majority.  Of course, they could pass a law in the Congress by two-thirds and then get two-thirds of the states to pass it and then they change the Constitution of America, but then we would no longer be a limited democracy.  We would no longer be America.  America, as we know it today, means that the majority does not rule in certain areas.
That is what this whole Torah portion Mishpatim is about, how people cannot have absolute power over everyone else.  Even with a slave and a master there are certain rights that a slave has, that people in a marriage relationship cannot lord it one over the other, that the poor have rights, that the creditor, even though the poor owes a lot of money, cannot do anything he wants to get that money back.  Everyone is limited.  We have to learn how to limit our power.  It is limitation of power which, of course, is one of the central Jewish messages.

This lesson is very, very important because people, when they say we live in a democracy, are not saying what is the truth.  In Germany when Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews I dare say if they had an election (and Hitler was elected by the majority) that the majority of the Germans would have voted to kill all the Jews.  In fact, there was fringe group of Jews headed by Max Nahman who paraded around in Germany in the 1930's who represented a thousand or less Jews, with signs saying, "We are guilty".  In other words, because the majority said that the Jews should be killed he agreed with him that the Jews should be killed?  He must be some sort of a nut.
That is carrying a logical principle out to its conclusion in a very consistent way but in a very foolish way.  In Judaism government is limited, and in Judaism the government must uphold the Constitution and all its laws are reviewed by its Constitution.  The constitution is the Torah, both written and oral.  In fact, if the religious parties would ever come to power in Israel there is really only one change that they want to make, and that is that the Supreme Court of Israel should rule according to Jewish law, not according to the hodgepodge of British, Turkish, and Jewish law which now reigns, but they should rule according to Jewish law.  Of course, many people are very much afraid of this because as in Jewish law there are many different opinions and they are afraid that some ultra ultra ultras could get in and impose all sorts of terrible things on the people.  Of course, we have the same danger in America.  We have all sorts of interpretations of the American Constitution, and if I dare say that if the view of certain members of the current court would ever become majority we would also have certain ultra ultra views put upon the American people.  The nomentative Jewish views are certainly more than in harmony with the American views.  In fact, there are many Halachic experts in the past and the present who marvel that the founding fathers of this country could have devised a form of government which so closely parallels the Jewish form of government.  In a way, it was no accident because many of the early founders of this country were scholars, and they purposely founded the government of the United States upon Jewish principles.  That is why they even said that a president had to be native born, just as a Jewish king had to be native born.  They also limited the powers, just as the king's powers were limited.  The high priest and the king could not be the same.  When a high priest tried to assume the duties of the kingship he was actually pelted by the people.  That was Alexander Yanah.  We know that in many of the basic institutions of America this same system and same way of thinking obtains as in Jewish thinking, which, of course, had a bad side, too, because so many Jews find it so easy to assimilate into America.  We Jews play an equal role in America because America is not a country which is based on ethnicity.  American nationality is defined by being loyal to the American ideal, which means limited government.  That is why in Russia today the Jews have a hard time because Russian nationality and Russian ethnicity are exactly the same thing.  If you are not a Russian ethnic you cannot be a Russian national.  Being an American by nationality has nothing to do with ethnicity, has nothing to do with what group you come from.  It is whether or not you subscribe to the American ideal of limited government.  If you subscribe to the ideal of limited government then you are an American by nationality.

Also in ancient Israel there was no reason why non-Jews could not participate in the government.  King David had many non-Jews in his government.  The only problem, of course, is when it comes to specific Jewish issues they should not rule on them, just like today in England it is absurd that Jewish members of Parliament should vote on who is going to be the Archbishop of Canterbury or that Arabs in Israeli Parliament should vote on who is a Jew.  Jews should not vote on anything that specifically deals with the Moslem community or with the Christian community.  That is their business to take care of.  However, there is no reason why on all other issues that are common to all of us that people should not vote and participate.  In fact, in Europe and in Israel there is a different system than in America as far as municipal elections.  In America if you are not a citizen you cannot vote in municipal elections, but in Europe and Israel you do not have to be a citizen to vote in a municipal election because garbage collection and police protection and schools also impinge upon you.  You are living in that community and you pay taxes so you are allowed to vote.  You are not allowed to vote in national elections which determine other areas of national defense and foreign policy, etc.  Of course, there would be special bodies set up for specific Jewish issues or Moslem issues, but in all instances that we are talking about here a non-Jew can participate fully in a Jewish state run according to Halachic principles.  A Jewish government is a limited government just as the United States has a limited government.

Unfortunately, many people when they start to think about democracy they are not thinking about the American model of democracy, limited democracy.  They are thinking about democracy in the Greek way, which, of course, is a tyranny of the majority.  Therefore, we always have to remember that we do not believe in democracy in America.  We believe in a limited democracy.

I am reminded of the story they tell about an elephant who was sitting on the side of a riverbank.  All of a sudden he spied a snapping turtle on a log.  Immediately he went over and kicked him.  The turtle flew 100 feet away.  A giraffe say it and went up to the elephant and said, "What did you do that for?"  The elephant replied, "Well, 50 years ago that snapping turtle bit me."  The giraffe said, "What a memory!"  The elephant looked at him and said, "Yes, turtle recall".  Unfortunately, there are many people who when they compare the Jewish ideal of government to democracy remember only the Greek model.  They do not remember that the democracy we are talking about today is a limited democracy.  When we talk about limited democracy Judaism and limited democracy are exactly parallel.  Let us hope and pray that we will continue to have a limited democracy in this country and that the Jewish ideal of limited democracy will always hold sway in Israel so the Mashiach will come.  Amen.