Exodus Cycle Four Mishpatim

Mishpatim

This year I love the parasha Mishpatim.

This is why: Mishpatim is packed tight with civil laws. And the most dark and frightening place is a land without law. In the same vein, it is also a community in which the laws have gone hay-wire.

I experienced this recently in my own community. Left without a rabbi the people make decisions that seem fair. This is great. At least there are those willing to keep the community together while the search for a rabbi is underway. The problem is that as humans we are all bound to be influenced by unconscious desires, past impressions, fleeting annoyances, fears, hopes, expectations. As objective as we all like to think we are, there are times when we know what we want and this most basic human trait…desire…leaves us stuck miles behind any objective frame at all.

We are a smart community though. We know that we don’t know enough (non-rabbi) to make any important decisions. So we don’t make them. Or so we think. But even a decision of non-decision is an action. So while we think we are doing little or nothing or next to nothing we are doing a lot. We are attempting to place a hold on more than just the temple, but the movement of the community, of God. Traditionally the temple is the beit knesset…the meeting place…as well as the beit tefillah…the house of prayer…as well as the beit hamidrash…the house of study. All three definitions of the temple are crucial if we are to be an evolving people. To put a hold on a temple therefore is equivalent to putting a hold on the mind, the heart and the body. Not an easy road to take.

In any case, we don’t have to worry because we can’t take it. No matter what, there will be action in the temple. The cantorial soloist arrives. The administrator sits at his desk. People walk in and out. The phone rings. Teachings are written. Babies are born. People die. And all along the decision to apply inaction, in whatever capacity, becomes more and more desperate, controlled by the memories, whims, experiences, likes and dislikes of committee members. Their feelings... which are by the way important but not the focal point of Talmudic scholars or sages… instigate decisions based on this priority of inaction. Whatever gets done is based on bias. Whatever doesn’t get done is based on bias.

Just to go on a small tangent, I’ve personally always wondered what it would be like to stop the world, even for a moment, to be successful in avoiding all change. In this weeks parasha we read about sexual activity for example. Imagine creating orgasm l’aolam vaed. Imagine roses stopped in a perfect state of grace. Or that moment on the beach, the sun just kissing the lip of the horizon. Imagine the world in a state of jubilee, yoval, healing. And at the moment nothing else can enter or exit. Neither the junk that naturally seeps in…nor any radiance just waiting to propel itself into our hearts. I don’t know what that would be for you. But that’s my definition of hell. And this blends well with the opinion of a whole range of Jewish scholars from the reform denomination to kabbalists.

Therefore, the decision for inaction feeds into the chaos. And there is nothing more dangerous.

Maybe this is why this year I just love the parasha Mishpatim.

In Mishpatim we receive laws that have been solid and in place for a few thousand years. Some may feel absurd but they are good to look at structurally, relaxing, a foundation, a stronghold, a basis for wise decision making and holy behavior.

In order to really know a picture though we need to first look at the frame. The boundaries. The package. In other words....before we begin to make important decisions, what do we want to consider? And after we make decisions, what do we hope for?

Let’s begin with before. Before Mishpatim is the parasha Yitro. And in the last few lines we are told not to use a tool to carve our own steps to the altar. If we use symbol here and if we see the steps as steps to God…in other words steps like on Jacob’s ladder…or steps like the mitzvoth, the lesson is clear as a bell. As much as we would like, we don’t create our own steps, our own laws, to arrive at our spiritual height. We don’t fool with the ways of God. It would be like building a ladder on earth to get to a helicopter. It doesn’t make sense.

Now let’s look at after. After any sacred decision we get called to God and we see a blue stone. We come to a place of balance, according to the kabbalists, where all sefirot create one at the center. We bring the sacred in ourselves…the Shechinah…to the sacred above. So that we all can be in an eternal place of love. This is certainly a worthwhile goal. I'm sure we all wouldn't mind being there.

So, the next question is this...what does this decision making process in Torah look like? If we look carefully at the laws in Mishpatim the overwhelming connection between them all…and there are many…is consideration for our fellow man, no matter our expectations, how we feel, if we like the person or not, if the person is above or below us on an economic, social, intellectual, or even Jewish scale. In fact, as if to cover everyone, to really take it to the edge, the one mitzvoth mentioned in Torah the most…36 times…is that we are to honor and respect the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt. This means that even within the community there might be people who feel different, who have transformed so they seem like strangers. We might feel like strangers to ourselves. With all of the different languages in this world there are also different languages depending on what level vis-à-vis God we see oursleves. Some people like to take Torah literally. Others see it as a story of human emotion. These different Torah-visions also create strangeness one man to the next. And there is nothing more important than consideration for that strangeness, a gentleness, an acceptance even if there is not an understanding. We need to even provide a welcoming, a joy in the welcoming, because God cannot be found if any stranger is resentfully accepted. The Talmudic rabbis speak at length about this and about how we also are to treat the servant…he is (in short) to be with us, eat the bread we eat, sleep in the same kind of bed. If this is so with the servant how much more so with the stranger! And how true this is for all of us, friends, acquaintances, enemies. Finally, while one concern is for the stranger, how he feels, how he adapts, the larger concern is the Israelite. This is important. We need to be able to create openings within our hearts that include everyone because this is how we grow. If we shut anyone out, if we shut down anything, if we stop any natural process of growth within ourselves and the community… we only create darkness and pain..

So while the Temple decides on inaction the Temple pushes away the stranger within the Temple as well as on the outside. Not a great way to find a rabbi. Not a great way to build a community. Pushing away the stranger is never a considerate action..not even if it is in the guise of protecting the community.

And how difficult it is…but how rewarding…if we could follow this one simple mitzvah...to treat each other with acceptance and an eye for growth….what a brilliant and compassionate rabbi we would attract…naturally…as we all rise to the beautiful state of balance within our most heightened God-self. We would be creating that which we intend….. but no longer according to our rules, our inaction or our refusal to make decisions…but according to the rules and the natural flow of God.