Mishpatim
Ex. 21:1 - 24:18
Précis: Having received the Ten Commandments (in the previous parasha), Moses now reveals ordinances (mishpatim) needed to implement a comprehensive system of laws. The first group of commandments (mitzvot) relate to the rights of servants (slaves), followed by rules about murder, crimes against parents, personal injury law, offenses against property, and bailment. A list of moral offenses follows, including seduction, witchcraft, sexual perversion, polytheism, and oppression of the “widow, the orphan, and the stranger among you.” The parasha also includes the command to observe a sabbatical year, the Shabbat, and then lists the requirements for the observance of the pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot). The command not to boil a kid in its mothers’ milk (a key proof text for the laws of kashrut) is mentioned, and at the conclusion of the parasha, we find a ceremony where the People, represented by Moses and 70 elders, have an encounter with the Divine Presence and accept the laws and the Covenant.
Ex. 22:2 “You shall not revile God, nor curse a leader among your people.”
Many traditional commentators see these two commandments as being connected. Leaders, they maintain are there to fulfill God’s plan. To curse a leader is to curse God Himself. But what of the leader who errs or who is deeply flawed?
One example is found earlier in this Book (when Yitro gives instruction to Moses on how to be a better leader). We also have the story of Nathan’s excoriation of King David over David’s having Bathsheba’s husband slain in battle so that David could have her or himself (2 Sam. 11-12).
The later Books of the Bible relate almost countless stories about leaders acting badly. Why, then, does this verse prevent us from cursing leaders? One idea is that there is a difference between cursing a leader and criticizing the leader. When we curse, we express anger. When we criticize, we hope for improvement and a change in behavior.
In the current context of American political discourse, cursing leaders is automatic and constant. Many would suggest that critiquing a leader is futile, since (obviously) their point of view is based on such heinous error. In this past week, for example, President Obama was excoriated by opponents when he had the temerity to note, at a National Prayer Breakfast, that the barbaric actions taken by ISIS in the name of Islam today had counterparts in the Christian atrocities of the Crusades and Inquisition, and American Christian support of slavery and Jim Crow laws. His point was that because some commit sins in the name of a particular religion does not necessarily discredit all of that religion’s adherents. Despite the historical accuracy of his points, his opponents assailed him in the most bitter of terms, questioning whether he believed in “American values.”
Eleanor Roosevelt was characterized (by Adlai Stevenson) as someone who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness; we seem to have a paucity of candle lighters in American life today.
