Which is it?

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) relates 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. 22:21 “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.

Ex. 23:30 “Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.”

           

Rabbi Sarah Bassin has posed a critical question illustrated by the following statements:

(1) Religion is the source of most atrocities in the world.

(2) Religion makes us better people.

 “Well, which is it?” she asks (Ten Minutes of Torah, 2/18).

 We can look to sacred texts in our tradition (and in others) and find statements which condone violence, and we can also find those that urge compassion for others. Many believers are reluctant to acknowledge violent passages, while nonbelievers pretend that texts calling for compassion are lacking. In this week’s reading, we have texts of both kinds, almost adjacent to each other. We can’t mistreat or oppress the foreigner, but the natives of the Promised Land will be driven out (initially by God but subsequently by Joshua and the Israelites). In other words, love the stranger and kill the nations. Our tradition is not as neat as we would like it to be.

            This is actually a deeply accurate analysis of human nature. We may take pity on any individual and feel compassion for him. But a group? We often ascribe to a group a stereotypical understanding. As Stalin reportedly said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

            Will we see people as individual strangers or as part of a group which threatens our safety or security? We must acknowledge that this is at the bottom of our concerns about “others” here in the United States and in Israel. As Rabbin Bassin notes, “Both impulses exist. Both serve a purpose.”

In a democratic society, we certainly prefer the rhetoric of the stranger over the rhetoric of wiping out the other nations, yet we cannot ignore our need for the preservation of our security. But if preservation becomes the definition of our societal identity, what are we preserving?

            It is an oversimplification to claim that religion is all about compassion, or that religion is the primary reason for evil. These extremes miss the point. Judaism in particular gives us the context to wrestle with our own nature in a complex world.

By offering contradictory teachings, this parasha makes us examine ourselves: how do we treat strangers and who do we want to be? The questions are hard, and the answers don’t come easily. But our tradition’s emphasis on treating the less fortunate among us with compassion (the single most repeated commandment in the Torah) leads us in the right direction.