MISHPATIM 1992

In the Torah portion Mishpoteem we learn detailed laws.  In last week's Torah portion, Yisro, we learned about the Ten Commandments.  The Ten Commandments are general principles.  How do we apply these principles in daily life?  This the Torah portion Mishpoteem begins to teach us.  It is not enough to believe in just general principles of life, liberty, justice, mercy, and compassion; we have to know how to implement these principles in practice.  That, of course, takes a lot of study.
At the very end of this Torah portion we learn something very interesting that we all know.  It says, "And Moshe came in the midst of the cloud and he went up to the mountain and Moshe was in the mountain forty days and forty nights."  The rabbis all ask the question, why did Moshe have to spend forty days and forty nights in order to get all the laws of the Torah, in order to learn how to implement the Ten Commandments?  After all, G-d created the world in six days.  If G-d wanted to He could have given Moshe all the knowledge of the Torah in one day or two days or at least six days.  Why did G-d have to take forty days to give Moshe Rabbeinu the whole Torah?  After all, if He gave it to him in a natural way forty days and forty nights is not enough time to absorb the whole Torah.  Therefore, G-d must have done something to Moshe's brain so he could absorb all the principles of the Torah in a very quick and efficient manner.  If G-d had already done this, why didn't He give Moshe the Torah in six days or one day or two days?  Why did G-d take forty days and forty nights in order to give Moshe Rabbeinu the Torah?

The rabbis answer by telling us that it is a very difficult thing to learn all the principles of interpersonal relationships, to learn how to apply the Torah to human beings in given situations, in real life situations.  It is much harder to do that than even to understand the laws of creation.  G-d has commanded us to rule over nature, to learn all we can about nature, but nature we can understand, so to speak, in six days.  When it comes to implementing the laws of morality, the laws of Judaism, especially as they pertain to inter-personal relationships it is very, very difficult.  It is much harder than even understanding the laws of physics and chemistry, etc.  The laws of physics and chemistry are simple compared to the laws of the Torah as we apply them to real life human situations.

This, of course, is something that the world does not always grasp.  The world used to think that they could solve all the principles of humanity and inter-personal relationships and problems between nations and individuals by just studying science.  But, of course, we cannot do that.  It is impossible to apply scientific principles to human conduct.  There are so many variables involved.  We all know that science, itself, is not so simple.  It used to be thought that science was a very simple thing, especially since the time of Newton and we could just apply Newton's laws to the laws of history and the laws of interpersonal development and be able to solve all mankind's problems.  Of course, that is how communism arose based upon that belief, and we all know what happened to communism, but science, itself, is not so simple.  Newton, himself, developed calculus and calculus is just an approximation, and when you use calculus you approximate an answer.  You say that the deviation is so small that it really does not make a difference so, therefore, you are able to calculate a circle by using means should only be good for a square.  We found out that Newton's type of calculations do not work always in the real world, that only linear equations can be solved this way but not non-linear equations.  People found out especially when they tried to predict the weather that just a little change and a little thing makes a very big difference, that there was a professor who calculated different calculations to predict the weather and he put it into the computer one day and then he put it in the second day and the second day he got completely different results from the first day.  He checked his answers and he saw that he did everything exactly the same and he could not figure out why he got such different answers the second day than he got the first day.  Then he figured out that on the first day he let the figure go way out to ten places, and this time he rounded it off to eight places, and, because of that, it made a whole different calculation.  The whole weather was completely different.  In fact, in meteorological circles they talk about that as the butterfly effect, that if a butterfly waves his wings in Beijing it is going to make a very big difference to the weather in New York.  Therefore, we see that very small changes even make a very big difference in the scientific world as well as in the moral world.  That's why we have to be very, very careful that when we tamper with society that we have to be careful that we make very little teeny tiny changes, that we can destroy the whole fabric of society.  This country, America, was based on the fact of distributing wealth.  In fact, the foundation of this country was the Homestead Act where anybody could 640 acres and work it and earn a living.  Therefore, a person had a stake.  This country made sure that everyone had an education, made sure that everybody had at least beginning capital that they could start their life with, and that, unfortunately, in the last few years the situation has reversed.  We have all of a sudden even skewed out tax base so that the rich get the tax breaks and the wealth is accumulating very quickly into a very few hands.  One percent of the population controls forty percent of the wealth.  It has never this way in America before.  Even if we look at the social security taxes, they are a heavy burden on people but only up to $50,000.  If you earn more than $50,000 your income above $50,000 is not taxed, another skewing of the tax base to help the rich.  We see now that there are all sorts of calls that people should pay more for college education and that the state universities should not be subsidized the way they are.  Right now it is very difficult to get student loans, and that is a terrible thing.  When you change just a few little things you can destroy the whole fabric of society.

In fact, throughout all ages we see that that has happened.  Many times when the upper class gets control they, all of a sudden, feel that they are the predominant ones and, therefore, all the wealth should flow to them, but when all the wealth flows to them you do not allow the people below to use their energies in order to develop themselves and to develop the country.  In fact, at one time Poland was the richest country in Europe.  This was in the 17th century, but we see how Poland went completely downhill.  They concentrated all the wealth in a very few hands.  We see what happened in South America and we have to be careful that the same thing does not happen in America, too.
In this week's Torah portion we learn how there are different kinds of watchmen.  We learn how there is a person who watches property for nothing.  He is a Shomer Cheenum.  He, from the goodness of his heart, watches somebody else's property who goes out of town.  This person is not responsible for anything if the property is stolen, if the property is lost.  He is only responsible for gross negligence.  Then you have a Shomer Socher.  You have a person who is paid to watch.  He benefits and the person whose object is being watched benefits.  Therefore he must take part of the risk.  If the object is stolen he has to pay for it etc.  Then you have a Sochair, who is a person who rents the property.  Again, both parties benefit, the person who rents him the property and the person who rents the property.  He also has to bear part of the responsibility for losses to the property.  Then, of course, there is the Shoelt, someone who borrows the property and all the benefit is his.  The person who loaned him the property is doing it out of the goodness of his heart, so he has to bear all the responsibilities.  He even has to be responsible for acts of G-d.  We see that in this Torah portion that we learn about how to implement the laws of the Torah.  We also know that G-d is referred to as Shomer Yisroel.  In our prayers that we say almost every day we say, "Guardian of Israel, the watchman of Israel, watch the remnant of Israel.  Watch the remnant of Israel who says the Shma Yisroel everyday."  And what does the Shma Yisroel say?  The Shma Yisroel says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our G‑d, the Lord is one."  The rabbis teach us that the last letter of the word Shma is written big in the Torah, and the last letter of the word Echod, one, Daled is also written big, which shows that we are to be the witness of G-d in the world.  How are we to be the witness of G-d in the world?  By saying, "Shom Och, there is your brother."  Make sure that your brother is taken care of, not just so that your brother should have something to eat and not just so your brother should be clothed, but also so that society should be good.  Society should be wonderful.  If all the people are working at their maximum society, itself, flourishes, but if people do not have the wherewithal to even implement any of their ideas, if the people are held in abject poverty then they will just wallow in that poverty and they will not contribute to society at all.  They will all become people on welfare.  Unfortunately, in Roman times that happened, and in our times it seems to be happening, too, where there was only the rich people and the poor people, the masses who subsisted on bread and circuses.  Today, too, the way we are going we are going to have a rich class and a very poor class who is just going to have to subsist on welfare.  That is not what the Torah wants.  That's why in this Torah portion we learn that you are supposed to loan money interest free to your brother so he can start a business, so he, himself, can make something of himself.  That is why we have always stressed Jewish education, that in order for a society to be strong, in order for a society to be prosperous everybody had to have a stake in that society, and that is why the Hebrew Free Loan is such an important organization.  The Hebrew Free Loan started so many Jews on their way to being self-sufficient.  It was the beginning of many of the Jewish fortunes in America, where they used to provide enough money for a person to get a horse and a wagon and some stock and start peddling.  We know, too, that there are the same type of equivalent things that are needed in our society to do.  Also, the Hebrew Free Loan provided money for people to get educations.  We all know, too, now in America it is almost impossible to get a good Jewish education.  Our Hebrew day schools are going to have to charge $5000 for every child.  Who can afford it unless you are a very rich person?  It is a shame.  How can day school survive?  If a person has three children, that is $15,000.  You have to earn a $100,000 a year in order to educate your children.  That means Judaism is only going to be for the rich.  We have to do something about it.  People have to make sure that Jewish education is adequately funded.  Maybe we have to change our position.  Maybe we have to try to have the government help us, too, as they do in other countries, but in our country and in Jewish society we have always said that the biggest form of mitzvah, the highest form of charity is to let a man stand on his own feet.  We do not want people to become dependent upon welfare.  You have to give a person a stake.  We used to give people 640 acres here in America.  We used to give them a start.  We used to give them an education, and even now you hear voices raised that state universities are being subsidized too much, that we should charge the full value of the education, $20,000 a year like they do at other schools.  Who could afford to go to school then?  We must make sure that our society stays on the right path because just a little change can make all the difference in the world.  Our societies are very complex, and we have to make sure that we conduct them according to correct moral principles, otherwise they will disintegrate and they will create very few people who are very rich and the majority of the people who are poor.  You create revolutionary situations.  You create violence and death and crime, as is happening in our country today.  We must, therefore, make sure that our people get an adequate education, that everybody has access to education, and that everybody should get a start in life, that they should have some sort of a stake.  After the second World War this country invested in the GI Bill.  It was one of the greatest things that this country ever did.  It also made sure that this country would be prepared for the future.  We must do the same thing now, and we, as Jews, must make sure that our children get a Jewish education.  We must make sure that such organizations as the Hebrew Free Loan are adequately funded so that everyone in our community can also get a stake in order to make something of themselves, because it is important that a society give each individual the opportunity to participate fully, by both giving them an education and by giving them a stake so that they can implement their ideas to the fullest.  Society is richer.  The community is richer.  The individual is richer, and the laws of the Torah can be more easily learned and applied and lived.  Let us all hope they will be so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.

I am reminded of the story they tell about a man who got a letter from his police department that they had just put up a new radar camera which snapshots all people who speed on a certain street.  There he got a snapshot of the license with his car, with the date and the number of miles that he was speeding.  It said, "Please return $100 to us along with your ticket."  The man was very impressed by this modern technology, and he immediately took a picture of a $100 bill and sent it to them.  Unfortunately, many people today talk a good game and they seem like they are doing something but they really are not backing proposals which make sure that every Jew has a Jewish education and has a stake to continue, and that every American, too, in the larger American society also has the best education that can be gotten and also has some sort of a stake so he can make something of himself in America.  Let us all hope we will have these things so that this country will continue to be great and that Judaism will thrive.  Amen.