MISHPATIM 1994

The Torah portion Mishpateem opens with the words, "And these are the mishpoteem, the ordinances, that you should put before them."  The rabbis all comment on the fact that the word mishpoteem is used here.  In the Torah there are three different types of laws.  There are mishpoteem, aidus, which is sometimes translated as testimonies, and chukim, statutes.  What is the difference between these three types of laws?  Well, mishpoteem refer to laws which are rational by their nature.  For example, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not be a false witness.  The rabbis say that the nations of the world would have come to the conclusion that these are things that they must have in order to maintain any type of society, so these are laws that are readily understandable.  The second types of laws are aidus, which have to do with Shabbos and the holidays.  They are called testimonies and they, themselves, seem to a large extent logical and rational because they celebrate different events in Jewish history and they talk about a day of rest.  We would not have come to these holidays on our own if G-d would not have told us to celebrate them, but they are not illogical anyway.  The last group of laws are chukim.  Chukim are laws which are by nature irrational in the sense that we do not understand the reason for them.  We have not understood the reason for them until very recently when some of these laws have seemed to become very important and very good for our health, although we do not observe them just for our health.  For example, we are not to eat pig, and we all know about cholesterol and trichenosis and things like that now, but really why shouldn't we have eaten pig until now until we understand health considerations better?  Also, too, the laws like shachnes, combining wool and flax, which is prohibited to do, laws of this nature are called chukim.  The rabbis say that in this Torah portion it seems that we are stressing mishpatim, and they say that when it says, "And these are the mishpatim that you should put before them,"  they explain the word "before them"  in three different ways.  They say that niftahem means that you should go before Jewish courts, and you should not go before other courts if you have a choice.  This assumes that the Jewish people have autonomy and the courts have power.  This seems strange, too, because we are talking about mishpatim.  Mishpatim everybody agrees with.  Everybody agrees you should not kill or steal or commit adultery or be a false witness, so why does it have to be Jewish courts?

The second way they explain "before them"  means that you have to put them before them like a set table.  You have to explain these laws.  You have to explain them so that we understand them and understand them thoroughly.  That i s why the code of Jewish laws is known as Shulchan Orech because it has to be a set table.  Moshe just should not give the laws to the Jewish people without explaining them.  People will not follow blind laws that they do not understand at least part of the reasons for them.  Therefore, you must present the laws in a way that we will understand how they affect us at least.

Then there is the third meaning of this which says that they must be part of you.  They have to be inside of you.  They have to be laws which create a bridge between you and G-d and you and man.  Now it is hard to understand then why the word mishpatim is used because mishpatim are rational laws that the nations observe, too, so why should we worry about not using their courts and only use our courts?  Also, since they are so rational, why do we have to worry about giving reasons for them and present them as a Shulchan Orech, as a set table?  Finally, what type of inner experience are these laws to give us?  If we are going to think about spiritual laws, laws which cause us to relate more to G-d, then we would think of the Aidus, of the Jewish holidays, of the Chukim, of the laws which do not seem to be understandable at first blush, but why do we mention here mishpatim?  Why should it be mishpatim?  Actually, if we look at this clearly we will see that mishpatim, themselves, are not so clear always.  For example, when it says you shall not murder, does that include self-defense?  What if you are the hangman for the state?  Or what about abortion?  Or what about euthanasia?  Are they murder?  Of course, Judaism would say that abortion is allowed in certain circumstances but not abortion on demand.  The same thing is true about thou shalt not steal.  What happens if you are starving to death, if you are in a concentration camp and you cannot live unless you steal potatoes?  Are you allowed to steal potatoes?  Or what happens if someone else owns your property, if someone borrowed your property and will not return it?  Are you allowed to steal it back?  What happens if you are living under a regime which does not tax fairly and you cheat on your taxes?  Is that considered stealing?  There are so many applications to these laws that they are not so clear as to how we are going to apply them.  

But more than that, when it comes to mishpatim, when it comes to justice, justice must be based upon a relationship between man and G-d.  Justice is.  not just a utilitarian concept.  When the nations of the world accepted mishpatim, accepted the laws of justice in society, many times they accepted them only because it is utilitarian, because it is helpful to run society, but it is not a way of connecting you to G-d or to man.  In our conception of mishpatim are a mitzvah.  It is a way to connect between G-d and man.  They help explain and develop your spiritual nature, and unless you believe in justice with your whole heart then you will never be able to have a correct relationship with G-d or with man.  We have all read in the newspapers today how Louis Farrakhan has supposedly denounced one of his aides who made some terribly anti-Semitic comments.  Of course, he did not do it in a very convincing way.  He said he disagreed with the way he said it but he agreed with his truths.  Now this is terrible what he has said.  It is obvious that many people in the United States are going to accept his apology.  As many people have already said, the problems in the black community are crime and drugs and the breakdown of the family.  It is not really anti-Semitism.  If he is an anti-Semite, so what?  These are not really our problems.  Set it aside.  I f Louis Farrakhan is helping us get rid of drugs and crime and rebuild the black family, and this is all true, as any place where the Nation of Islam goes they resuscitate the neighborhood, they give black fathers reasons for the staying with their families and they have become self-reliant.  This is all true, but it is still coupled with anti-Semitism and, therefore, people say, in order to accomplish a greater goal, that justice for the black people in America, so what if he is anti-Semitic?  What difference does it make?  He is promoting the interests of his people.  So what if he is downplaying the interests of another people?  So what?  This is the same argument that the Germans used at the time of Hitler.  After all, Hitler was elected democratically.  Hitler won the most votes in Germany.  Were all those Germans anti-Semi tic?  No, they were not anti-Semi tic, but they said, listen, Hitler can solve our unemployment problems, can stabilize the Deutschmark, will give us back our pride, will stop the crumbling of the German family.  So he is anti-Semitic?  So what?  We will put it aside.  He is going to do some many good things.  When he got into power he actually did create full employment and actually did stabilize the Deutschmark.  He did give pride to the Germans in their peoplehood, but look what his anti-Semi tic policies led to.  They led to concentration camps, to Dachau, to Auschwitz, etc.  Our people were put up to be the Korban, to be the sacrifice to satisfy other groups' sense of injustice.  This is not just happening now with rarakhan or happened in Germany.  It happened here in the 19501s and 19601s, too when neighborhoods were being inundated by immigrants from the farms of America, where the small farmer was no longer needed, the sharecroppers were no longer needed.  Ten million blacks flooded into the cities and many millions of whites and the neighborhoods that the banks targeted for them to take over were Jewish neighborhoods.  They said that Jews always have a soft heart, anyway, and they redlined these districts, and it was Jewish neighborhoods that were taken over.  This has been documented in many books, especially about Boston, and we can see that the Jewish people were made the sacrifice so that the people coming off the farms could make a decent living and have decent housing.  The theory was, we don 1 t needs Jews, anyway.  What difference does it make if Jews disappear?  It really is not important.  We are always being sacrificed for the sake of some higher form of justice.  This is happening in Israel today, too.  I f you read the European press they do not believe that Israel is going to be in existence anymore by the year 2000 and they do not care because to them the Jews should have disappeared two thousand years ago, or if you are a Moslem 1400 years ago.  There is no reason for Jews to exist anymore, and if Jews get in the way of world peace and harmony, let them be sacrificed.  After all, there are more Arabs in the world and they control the wonderful and important resource and have a better market, so if the Jews disappear what difference does it make?  They should have assimilated a long time ago into the nations of the world.

We see this same attitude in Bosnia-Herzegovina where the nations of Western Europe have not learned anything.  They are just interested in their interests.  They are not interested in justice.  Why do they think that the Moslem population should be completely annihilated and defeated?  Because they do not belong there anyway.  Moslems do not belong in the heart of Europe, and so, therefore, they send in their peace keeping troops.  They allow Russia to come in who everybody knows is biased in favor of the Serbs, but they would not let Turkey come in to protect the Moslems.  We know that in the world today people are not interested in justice.  They are interested in serving their interests.  That, of course, is a perversion of everything that Judaism stands for.  We find that even in internal policies where people know that the policies that they are pursuing are unjust but they serve the interests of the group that they represent.  We call them special interests but that is not justice.  People have to go above many times their own self-interests in order to arrive at justice, but justice does not mean sacrificing another group.  Even if by so doing you think that you are going to do good, actually you are going to do evil.  The blacks in this community should end their crime problem and their drug problem and should rehabilitate the family, but they can do these things without being anti-Semi tic.  Hitler could have done what he did, too, without being anti-Semi tic, and if you feel that you can only do good by destroying the Jewish people, then what kind of good is that?  

That's why it says these are the mishpatim.  These are the laws that you should set before them.  Remember, when you are dealing with laws you are dealing with justice.  You are not dealing just with utilitarian concepts.  You are not just dealing with certain things that people would arrive at reasonably anyway in order to run society.  These are not just utilitarian concepts.  These are the very basis of the way G-d rules the world.  G-d rules the world through justice, and if we understand this, then we will make this part of ourselves and we will be just because we want to have a closer relationship with G-d because G-d will not have a close relationship with us unless are just.  We will then be able to have a close relationship with all people and we will not want to sacrifice any people for the so-called sake of the greater good because it is in our interests to do so.  Nations they say have only interests.  They do not have any sense of morality or justice.  That has to change.  All throughout history if nations are only interested in their interests you can rest assured that there will be many wars and destruction ahead.  I f nations are interested in pursuing justice then there will be a chance that there could be peace in the world.  Justice demands that we do not just twist around laws anyway we want them to come out so that we can protect our interests.  Justice means that we really have the best interests of everybody at hand, everybody who lives in the world, and we are not just trying to sacrifice one group in order to better another group.  In the world it has always been the case where when one strata of society feels that another strata of society has been put upon and has been the subject of persecution and prejudice they always certainly have to make up to it, but they do not want to give anything of their own.  They always decide they have to give the Jews 1 property and position.  They have to get rid of the Jews in order to make room for these other types of people who are coming in.  That is evil and that is wrong.  Laws have to look to do justice for everybody and not just for certain segments of the community.

G-d does not want us to obey Him blindly.  We have to feel that the commandments have some meaning for us.  It is true that we cannot know their ultimate reasons.  Even in science we cannot obtain ultimate reasons.  Science cannot answer the question of why.  It only answers the question of how and what.  It is basically descriptive.  Why should the speed of sound be 2680 feet per second?  Why should water freeze at 32°?  Why should gravity act the way it does?  We really cannot answer these questions.  We cannot answer the question also of the chukim, of why G-d gave them to us, but we can answer the question of what.  What do they do for us?  How do they add meaning to our lives and how, by and large, do people who observe them lead better lives?  There is very little violent crime among Jews.  There has been at least up to now above average home life.  Jews have not been as prone as other peoples to drug and alcohol abuse.  The laws of kashruth and mikvah and similar laws have an effect on us.  We may not know why, but they give meaning and dignity and perspective to our lives.  At the end of this Torah portion we learn how the Jewish people accepted the Torah by saying, "We will do and we will understand."  This was considered a great thing, but why?  They had already said a few sentences earlier that they would do the commandments but that is not enough.  We have to understand that they add meaning and purpose and joy to our lives.  They connect us to G-d and man.

I am reminded of the story they tell about a teacher who asked one of her students, "If you had $2 and you asked your best friend, Richard, for $4, how much money would you have?"  Sammy looked at the teacher and said, "Well, I would have $2."  The teacher said, "You do not understand math."  Sammy replied, "Teacher, you don't understand my friend, Richard."  When it comes to justice we must be interested in justice and not in interests.  We must make sure that we are pursuing what is right and just, not just what is in our interests.  If we are only interested in our interests we will have war and destruction, but if we are interested in true justice then we can create world peace, and then the Mashiach can come.  May He come quickly in our day.  Amen.