MISHPATIM 1995

In the Torah portion Mishpoteem we learn how the Ten Commandments were fleshed out.  It says, "And these are the ordinances that you should place before them."  Rashi comments because it uses the word "Va" it means that these laws are tied together to the Ten Commandments.  It is interesting to note, though, that the word for ordinance here, or laws, are Mishpoteem.  In Judaism there are really three different kinds of laws.  There is the Mishpoteem which roughly conform to natural law, the laws that we would come to on our own account anyway even if the Torah was not given.  Every society has to have laws against killing, stealing, adultery, being a false witness, etc.  Unless society has these types of laws then the society cannot function at all.  Of course, if you examine very carefully these laws they do differ from society to society.  For example, cannibals agree that you cannot kill also, only under certain other circumstances can you kill.  We also note, too, that there are all sorts of debates about what is killing.  Is abortion killing?  Is euthanasia killing?  When you get down to the nutty gritty you may also have disagreements, but the basic laws of society are almost self-evident if there is to be a society.  We cannot kill, steal, testify falsely, etc.  These are what is known as Mishpoteem.

The second type of laws are the Edus.  The Edus means the testimonies.  These are laws which are logical but we would not come to them unless the Torah told us about them.  For example, the Shabbat, the Jewish holidays.  We all know that every society has to have holidays to commemorate important events of that society and to enshrine certain values into the hearts of the people.  For example, July 4th enshrines freedom into the consciences of Americans.  Thanksgiving Day also tells us that we have to be thankful for our past, etc.  There are other holidays like Memorial Day, which teaches us that we have to appreciate the sacrifices that were made by our soldiers in previous wars, but we would not necessarily say that they had to come on certain dates.  We most certainly would not come to the idea that Shabbat has to be every seventh day.  We know that Shabbat is a great benefit, that people cannot work straight without a break, that their work, itself, suffers.  So these are things which are logical but the precise definition of them is really something we would not come to without the aid of the Torah.

There is a third category of laws which is called Chukeem.  These laws are laws for which we really cannot understand the reason at all and we would not come to them using logic.  They are not like the Adus which are logical but that they form and the way they are presented you would not come to based unless we had the laws of the Torah we would have different kinds of holidays and celebrate them in a different way, but the Chukim we would not celebrate at all.  They are not a product of logic.  For example, the laws of kashruth.  Why should we eat certain animals and not others?  Why can't we eat milk and meat together?  As science advances we see that there are logical underpinnings for these laws, too.  We all know about cholesterol.  It is very bad to eat milk and meat together.  There are certain diseases that are transmitted by the blood so we should stay away from the blood, etc.  The same thing applies to Yom Kippur when it comes to fasting.  Many people will tell you that it is good to fast at least one day a year, etc., but these are laws that we would not come to if I apply our logic.  Now it is true that these laws are beneficial to us.  We all know that by and large, at least statistically, that is someone keeps kosher that it is much less likely that they and their children will become drug addicts because we have already been taught that we cannot eat anything that we want or do with food what we want.  Even those foods that we are allowed to eat we cannot eat them whenever we want them because if you have meat you cannot have ice cream right afterwards.  Therefore, a person is already psychologically prepared that there are certain things that he cannot ingest.  The same thing is true with Shabbos.  It has been consistently proved that those people who keep Shabbat, who have a Friday night dinner where the family sits together and discusses their problems, that the parents stay home with their children one day a week, that that family is a much stronger unit, and that that family usually stays together and the children do better in school, etc., at least statistically, but these laws, these Chukeem, that we have area really basically not explainable.  For example, the law of the red heifer where the ashes of heifer when the Temple stood combined with water would be able to purify people.  Why we do not really understand, but we see hare that the laws that Moshe Rabbeinu was told to present before the Jewish people are not the Chukeem.  We would think that it would be these laws that you should put before them.  The rabbis ask, what does it mean we should put before them?  They explain that this means that you have to explain them thoroughly so that people will want to do them, and that they should be part of their personalities.  One rabbi explains that when it says to put it before them it means that they should be inwardly part of them, that they should be natural to them.  You should explain them so well.  You should not just give the laws.  You have to explain how they work on us and what they do for us.  We would think they may be the Chukeem or the Adus but here instead it is talking about the Mishpoteem, the natural law of man.  Why should we have to have a special commandment to explain for us natural law which every society understands?  Don't kill, don't steal, etc.

Actually there are 3 questions that we can ask that many people think religion answers.  Actually religion does not answer them.  for example, there is the question why.  We do not know why things happen in the world.  We do not know why G‑d had to create a world of pain and suffering and death.  We do not know why.  Anybody who tells you that he knows why is either a fool or an imposter.  We do not know the answer to the question why.  In fact, science cannot answer the question why either.  We do not know why water freezes at 32«.  We do not know why if you throw a ball in the air it comes down.  People say gravity, but what is gravity.  I remember I asked my teacher.  When I asked her that question why when you throw a ball in the air does it come down and she said gravity.  I asked what was gravity was and she said, "Turn to page 32."  We do not know why these things are.  We just know that they do exist.  Science answers the question how.  Religion also does not basically answer the question how, although it does to a minor degree.  The question now is how does this interact with this?  That is what science teaches us.  How do the forces work?  If we understand how different forces work we can build a bridge so the bridge will not be blown down during a hurricane or will not be swept away in a flood.  Science answers the question how, not the question why.  What is the question that religion answers?  Religion answers somewhat of the question of how, like how do you make Shabbat, how do you make a seder, but the question that religion really is what.  What does this do for me?  How does this affect me?  We do not know exactly how many times the mechanism works but we know, as I mentioned before, if we keep certain religious beliefs and practices it has an effect upon us.  As I said before, a family that keeps kosher is much less likely that their children or they will become drug addicts.  A family that keeps Shabbat is much less likely that the family will be broken.  The family will be a stronger family and the members of the family want to help each other and be with each other because they have developed strong bonds and relationships.  We know how religion affects us.  It makes us better people.  It gives us strength to overcome our problems.  G‑d never promised us that if we are religious we will not have problems.  He only promises that He will give us the strength to overcome our problems if we are religious, so we know that religion does not really answer the question why.  We say G‑d knows why but we do not know why.  It really does not answer the question of how except in a very technical sense, but it answers the question what.  What does it do for me?  What do all these things do to me and how do they affect me?  That is the question that religion answers.

That, of course, is what we learn here when we talk about these are the laws, these are the natural laws of man.  They exist out there.  Don't steal.  Don't kill, but, unfortunately, many people have not internalized them.  How do you internalize the laws?  You internalize them by studying them, by making them part of you, by making sure that your children have a good Jewish education when they are young.  We must teach values.  One of the big problems with our public schools today is we have taken values out of the public schools, and, therefore, many people do not see that there is anything wrong with stealing or even killing as long as they can get away with it.  They have not internalized these values.  We have to teach these values so well that a person will not want to do them, not because he is afraid he is going to be caught but because he is not a mentsch if he does them, that a person will never want to violate any of these natural laws so-called.  After it says, "And these are the laws that you should put before them."  You should explain them well.  You should make sure that they become part of them.  That, of course, is the purpose of Jewish education, to make you want to do what you ought to do.  That, of course, is what the Torah is teaching us here.  The Ten Commandments, it is true, there is an objective morality outside ourselves.  That is what the Ten Commandments stand for.  It is not enough to have an objective morality.  They also have to be within you.  Put before you.  Put within you.  That is why Jewish education is so important, not just for youngsters but for adults, too.  They should continually reinforce the values that they have so that they will always act like a mentsch.  That is our challenge, to always make sure that we act like mentschen so the world can progress morally.

I am reminded of the story they tell about a man who cheated the IRS and after a year or two he could not stand it any longer, so he wrote them a letter saying, "I regret to inform you that 2 years ago on my tax return I cheated you.  Enclosed is a check for $1000.  If I can't still sleep tonight, I'll send you the rest."  Of course, he only internalized part of the values.  That, of course, is one of the problems that we have today, and that is that a person does not feel intrinsically within himself that he has to do the right thing otherwise he will disappoint himself and his G‑d.  Many times people only desist from doing the wrong thing because they are afraid that they are going to get caught, and that is not enough.  The Torah teaches us these are the laws.  Even the natural laws, and that is what they are stressing, the natural laws, the laws between man and man, that these laws have to be part of you.  They have to be explained so well to you that they become part of you and you would never want to violate them even If there is not a policeman within 100 miles of you.  Let us all hope and pray that all of us will develop our consciences to this extent so that we will only want to do what we ought to do, so in that way we can assure that the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.