MISHPATIM 1993

In the Torah portion Mishpatim we learn in the very first sentence, "And these are the laws that you shall place before them."  Rashi explains that that means that you are to prepare the laws before the Jewish people as if you were preparing a meal at the table and, therefore, the expression used is Shulchan Orech, that you should prepare the laws of Judaism as if you were setting a table.  IN other words, the laws should be made palatable for the people.  The people should understand the reasons for the laws and that, of course, is why Jewish education has always been stressed throughout the ages because without Jewish education the Jewish people will not keep the laws.  They will not understand them.  They will not understand how they relate to their lives, how they are going to make them better people, how they are going to make them closer to other human beings and closer to G-d.  That is what we see in the latest educational surveys.  The more Jewish education that young people have the less likely they are to intermarry and assimilate, while the less Jewish education they have the more they will be inclined to assimilate and intermarry.  In fact, you can see from the statistics that are given that if a youngster has a good day school education the likelihood of intermarriage is only about 7%, but if the child has almost no Jewish education it rises to 60-70%, and we know that the average now is 52%.  That is why it is important that if the child will not go to a day school at least we will have a Talmud Torah for him because even a Talmud Torah education will lessen this rate because it will allow the child to see how the laws of Judaism relate to him and to his life.

However, there is a question that we can ask here.  The question here is that I thought that we are supposed to observe the laws of the Torah because G-d commanded them.  What does it mean that we should have to have reasons for the laws?  If we do not have reasons for the laws that means we should not observe them?  Also at the end of the Torah portion Mishpatim we learn how the Jewish people are considered to have done a very meritorious deed when they accepted the Torah by saying, "We will do and we will understand."  Many rabbis have put the emphasis on "we will do," that it seems so important that the Jewish people were willing to do the commandments even before they understood them.  That was considered a great merit, but if the whole thing is that they were willing to do the laws, if they were willing to implement the mitzvahs, if that was really the whole big thing, then what do we have to have Nishmah for at all?  Also, especially since twice before the Jewish people had already said that "we will do the laws."  They said it just a few sentences earlier when they said, "And they answered all the people with one voice and they said, 'Everything which G-d spoke we will do'."  Obviously we will do is not enough.  The Jewish people had to have something else besides we will do.  They had to have understanding.

But, again, as we have just said before that the reason that we observe the laws is because G-d commanded the laws, then what difference does it make if we have reasons for them or not?  Of course, the answer to that is that many times people may doubt whether G-d really commanded the laws to us or did not, but even if people did believe G-d commanded the laws to us but then if they do not see the benefit of these laws in their own personal lives, they might not feel inclined to observe them.  Also, and this is most important, when the rabbis say we do not have to give laws for the different commandments of the Torah they are talking about something altogether different.  You know that there are really 3 questions that we can ask.  We can ask the question why, how, and what.  Why G-d to create the kind of world He created is a question we cannot answer.  Why G-d wants us to be His partner in creation we cannot answer that law, just like in science.  Science can never answer the question why.  Why was the world created?  It cannot answer that question.  It cannot answer the question why does water freeze at 32°?  It only explains that it does.  Why doesn't water freeze at 60°?  We do not know why.  Science does not deal with the question why.  Science deals with the question of how.  I remember how when I was a child in class I once asked the teacher, "If I throw the ball in the air how come it comes down?  Why does it come down?"  The teacher said, "Because of gravity."  I said, "Why does it come down because of gravity?"  The teacher said, "Turn to page 56 and learn about botany."  The teacher did not know because many times there are no answers to why.  That is, of course, what the rabbis are talking about when they talk about the laws of the Torah.  Many times we do not know why G-d particularly commanded that particular law.  We do not know why the observance of this law will cause the world to be a better place.  I know that when Adin Steinsaltz was here he tried to explain to us that many times we cannot see the effect of mitzvahs but they have cosmis effects.  If we do certain mitzvahs it is as if we pushed certain buttons and in far away places of the universe blessings rebound back to us.  G-d's abundance comes back down to us.  He gave us an illustration.  The illustration was, what happens if a person was sitting in a control room where he had all sorts of buttons to push.  If he pushed one button air conditioning came through a building three blocks away.  If he pushed another button heat came to another building two blocks away.  If he pushed another button all of a sudden the electricity was turned on in a third building and all the machine started to work, so he said we do not know exactly how the mitzvahs are working and what the cosmic effect of the mitzvahs are, but we do know that they have some sort of effect.  This may be all well and good but it is all theoretical, speculation.

Also, when we ask the question how, how do these things affect the salvation of the world?  How does observing kashruth really affect the coming of the Mashiach?  These kinds of questions we cannot really answer either.  These kind of reasons are not really reasons that would really convince anybody to keep the commandments, and although the rabbis say that we do not need any reasons to keep the commandments, the rabbis, themselves, are giving many, many reasons for keeping the commandments.

The third question is what.  What is this doing?  What is this doing to me?  That is the question that the rabbis answer and that is the reasons that we have to give our children.  If children understand that if they keep the commandments they are going t be better people, they are going to be more compassionate people, they are going to be people who can better relate to people, then they will want to keep the commandments because the commandments affect them.  How do these commandments affect us?  We know, for example, that if a person keeps kashruth it is less likely that he will become a drug addict because you learn restraint.  You cannot eat anything you want whenever you want.  You cannot put anything in your mouth just because you feel like putting it in your mouth.  Even those things you can put in your mouth you cannot put in all the time.  It teaches you restraint on what products of the world you can ingest.  Also, if a person keeps Shabbos it teaches him that there are many things that are important in this world besides material things.  We can smell the roses once a week.  We are supposed to sit back and be man the appreciator and not just man the creator.  If we understand the reasons for the Torah and how they affect our lives then we will more likely keep them and the laws will enhance our lives and improve society.  We many times fail to stress this.  Many people think that the Jewish laws are just arbitrary, that they have no affect upon us or society, but that is not true.  In fact, the rabbis ask, does G-d need us to keep kosher?  Does G-d care whether we eat treif meat or kosher meat?  The answer is it does not affect G-d but it affects us.  G-d gave us the laws to refine ourselves, to make us better people, better compassionate people, people of restraint, people who know how to make it in the world without going to excess.  It is important that the Jewish people understand as well as do.  If they only do without understanding pretty soon they will stop doing.  That is, of course, what happened in America.  When the first generation came and they could not understand how all these laws would relate to them, how they would make their lives better, in fact, it seems like it made their lives worse.  It was harder for them to make a living.  It was harder for them to integrate into America by keeping these laws and they did not understand how these laws were also very good because they strengthened the family.  They strengthened their own personality.  They really gave them those character traits which allowed them to succeed in America.  So Nishmah is very important.  It is not just enough to do; we also have to understand.

This Shabbos, too, is also Shabbos Skolim.  The rabbis say, too, that why is it that the Jewish people had to give half a shekel in order to be counted?  There are many, many reasons for it.  These reasons enhance our appreciation of that particular commandment.  What are the reasons that they give?  First of all, they say that a person is only a half a person unless he is attached to a group.  Attaching yourself to a group enhances you; it does not diminish you, as many people in America feel.  Another reason they give is that a man and a wife are a whole unit and it was only the men who sinned at the golden calf and not the women, so only the men had to bring half a shekel.  They also say that people should not feel that when they give a big donation that is enough.  They have only given half what they should give.  They should still give more every time.  Finally, they teach us, too, that we only give half a shekel because, after all, we are only half responsible.  G-d is also responsible for us doing sins and doing things beneath our nature because He created the evil inclination.  If He would not have done that we would not have sin.  So we see by just looking at these reasons and, of course, we have to realize that there is not one reason for these commandments but there are many, many reasons and they are all right.  We cannot do, as some people say, that the only reason kashruth was given was because of trichinosis and now we can control trichinosis and eradicate it so, therefore, we do not need the laws of kashruth.  Of course, we see today that trichinosis is actually rising in America, not declining.  Look what happened on the west coast with the polluted meat.  It is not so clear even from the pure food and drug aspect that we do not need kosher laws anymore, but, of course, that is not the reason for the law.  When we give reasons we only give reasons of how these laws affect us.  We are not giving the why of the law so we can abrogate the law.  We are giving reasons for the laws so that these mitzvahs will be beloved by us, so we will want to observe them because they really do have an impact on us and really do make us into better people.

Let us all hope and pray that all of us will realize this so that we will do many more mitzvahs so that the Jewish people will be strong.

I am reminded of the story they tell about a fellow who came to a minister.  He was very down hearted and depressed.  His creditors were hounding him and everything was bad.  The minister told him to look into the Bible and it would help him and he would then be able to make his way in the world.  The minister saw him two months later and the man was happy and joking and had no worries.  The minister asked him, "Did you look into the Bible?"  He said, "I sure did."  The minister said, "What did you find when you opened the Bible?"  The man said, "I found Chapter 11."  That is, of course, not the reading of the Bible that we Jews do and that is a very superficial understanding of the Bible.  We say that the mitzvahs require deep learning, deep understanding to see how they affect us and when we realize how they affect us then we will want to do them and when we want to do them we will be better people and because we will be better people we will want to be better Jews and will want to preserve the Jewish message so the world can have it so the world can be redeemed soon by the coming of the Mashiach.  May He come quickly.  Amen.