The Second Revelation
Introduction to Parashat Hashavua
Yeshivat Har Etzion
PARASHAT
MISHPATIM
The Second Revelation
By Rav Michael Hattin
INTRODUCTION
Last week, we read about the Revelation at Sinai. Less than two short months after the Exodus, God gathered the people of Israel at the base of the mountain and in a fiery and overwhelming display, proclaimed His Ten Utterances. How quickly had the fortunes of Israel been transformed! A short time earlier, they had been Pharaoh's downtrodden slaves, their broken bodies performing ceaseless labor and their numb minds occupied with only a single, crude thought: to complete their daily tally of mud bricks. Suddenly and unexpectedly liberated, they now stood attentive at the desolate mountain's base as they struggled to internalize the shattering message that human conscience has value and that autonomous human beings must engender the exercise of their moral will. Henceforth, human life would have meaning, purpose and inestimable worth, while human labor – now freed from the oppressive shackles of unjust slavery – would be invested with dignity. But little did the people of Israel realize that God's brief proclamation of the Decalogue was only the precursor to grander things: a comprehensive code of laws and rituals that would touch upon every aspect of their existence, namely the Parasha of Mishpatim.
This week's Parasha constitutes one of the Torah's most
comprehensive treatments of the laws.
While it cannot be said to be exhaustive, its variegated legislation
relates to every facet of human existence.
It delineates the parameters of our relationship with others – their
person as well as their property – while not ignoring our relationship with God
as well. It discusses laws of
indenture, torts, deposits and loans, sexual misdemeanors, as well as treatment
of the convert, widow and orphan, presentation of sacrifices and celebration of
the pilgrim festivals. In short,
Parashat Mishpatim presents us with the daunting challenge of building a
just and kind society, a society in which the responsibilities of the individual
towards his neighbor as well as towards his God are regarded with equal gravity
and fulfilled with comparable enthusiasm.
THE RAMBAN'S LINKAGE
Alerting us to the fundamental link between last week's Ten Utterances
and this week's Laws, The Ramban introduces his commentary to the Parasha
with the following synopsis:
"And these are the laws which you shall place before
them" – the Divine intent was to present the people with these laws immediately
after the Revelation at Sinai.
Recall that the first of the Ten Utterances concerned recognition of God
and the second prohibited idolatry.
After that theophany had taken place, God reiterated these ideas: 'you yourselves saw that I spoke to you
from heaven' (Shemot 20:19) parallels the First Utterance of 'I am the
Lord.' 'You shall not fashion gods
of silver or gold' (Shemot 20:20) recalls the Second Utterance that
prohibited idolatry. These laws
about to now be presented continue the theme of 'Thou shall not covet.' For if a person is ignorant concerning
the laws of the house, the field, or other forms of property, he might imagine
to himself that they are his, and then covet them and seize them. Therefore, God commanded Moshe to place
these laws before the people, so that they will behave with uprightness and not
desire that which does not belong to them.
Similarly in the Midsrash Rabba it is stated: 'The entire Torah is
predicated on justice, and therefore God presented these laws after the
Revelation of the Ten Utterances.'
Thus, these laws that follow speak of the prohibition of idolatry, of the
obligation to honor one's parents, and of the prohibition of murder and
adultery, all of which are mentioned in the Ten
Utterances.
Every thinking human being recognizes the necessity of laws in order to govern and to regulate social intercourse. Laws ensure that our innate drives for possession and power are held in check, deterring us from otherwise exercising our often unbridled and selfish passions. Laws secure peoples' bodies and things from being seized or stolen by others, providing us with the peace of mind that our labors and our lives are not exercises in futility. Laws provide a mechanism for restitution when damages, intentional or inadvertent, have been inflicted on one's fellow, ensuring that a person's rights to the well-being of his body and to the safety of his belongings are respected. Occasionally, laws may even inspire us to greater achievements, by reminding us that justice and concern for others, the hallmarks of altruism, are at the foundations of a model society. In short, laws are the absolute antithesis of the brick pits, where human lives are worthless, the products of one's labors are cruelly appropriated, and concern for the welfare of others is suicidal.
But while The Ten Utterances are universally regarded as fundamental
principles, the Ramban pointedly informs us that they are insufficient, in and
of themselves, to create a moral and law-abiding society. "Thou shall not covet" is an upright and
virtuous injunction, a majestic vision expressed with a remarkable economy of
words, but in the absence of practical and detailed guidelines that spell out
its parameters, it remains an exalted slogan with little hope of
realization. Accordingly, fast on
the heels of the Ten Guiding Principles presented in last week's Parasha,
the Torah presents the Law Code of Parashat Mishpatim, a series of
statutes that forms its natural continuation.
ANOTHER REVELATION
In another conscious evocation of last week's theophany, Parashat
Mishpatim also concludes with God's revelation to the people. After Moshe has spelled out the laws he
solemnly concludes a covenant with Israel to observe them. The people proclaim their fealty by
declaring "all that God has spoken we shall do!" (Shemot 24:3) much as
they had done on the eve of the revelation (Shemot 19:8), and Moshe then
duly records God's words in writing.
On the morrow, Moshe builds an altar at the feet of the mountain and
erects twelve pillars of stone on behalf of the tribes. The lads of Israel offer sacrifices and
Moshe then sprinkles half of the sacrificial blood upon the altar. Once again, Moshe relates God's laws –
this time reading them from "the Book of the Covenant" – and the people
unanimously accept. Moshe now takes
the other half of the sacrificial blood and sprinkles it upon Israel to signify
their approval of the covenant's provisions. Finally, Moshe and the elders – Aharon,
Nadav, Avihu and seventy leaders of the people – ascend the mountain, much as
Moshe had initially gone up on the eve of the Revelation:
They saw the Lord of Israel. Under His feet was the likeness of the
whiteness (literally "livnat") of sapphire, as pure as the essence of the
clear skies. He did not unleash His
power against the elders of Israel, and they ate and they drank (Shemot
24:9-10).
The above passage is quite obviously figurative and the commentaries
justifiably set out to lessen its anthropomorphic character. The Aramaic Targum of Onkelos
(1st century CE Israel) adopts a reading that is followed by most of
the later commentators, understanding the experience of the elders to have been
a spiritual vision of the glory ("They saw the Lord of Israel") that is
associated with God's presence, here signified by the symbol of His throne
("Under His feet was the likeness of the whiteness (?) of sapphire, as pure as
the essence of the clear skies").
As the Ibn Ezra amplifies:
The meaning of "under His feet was the likeness of solid
sapphire" is that it is just like "the appearance of sapphire stone"
(Yechezkel 1:26) that Yechezkel saw in his prophetic visions, namely the
likeness of a throne. As for "pure
as the essence of the clear skies," that means underneath the likeness of the
solid sapphire and it refers to the firmament that was like the color of ice
outspread over the heads of the angelic beings that Yechezkel saw (1:22). Here it is written that "they saw the
Lord of Israel" and there it is written that "it was the angelic being that I
saw beneath the Lord of Israel" (10:20), for the prophet spoke tersely. Really he meant the angelic being
beneath the firmament that is below the throne, with all of it beneath the
Glorious God (commentary to Shemot 24:10).
Clearly, Ibn Ezra seeks to lessen the anthropomorphic
tone of the passage by relating it to the ecstatic visions of the prophet
Yechezkel. Yechezkel, who lived at
the end of the First Temple period (6th century, BCE), recorded a
number of his mystical visions, in which he saw the God of Israel, His awesome
throne and His overwhelming heavenly retinue. These visions were of course not at all
literal but only spiritual perceptions in the prophet's mind communicated to him
through the vehicle of God's inspiration.
Ibn Ezra detects similar elements of those visions in the concluding
sections of our Parasha, and thus relates the experience of the elders to
those of Yechezkel. In other words,
the elders achieved a degree of prophecy that is described in our text as a
"seeing the Lord of Israel and His sapphire throne."
RASHI'S READING AND CHIZKUNI'S
AMPLIFICATION
Rashi, however, provides us with a more provocative
reading, based upon a much earlier Midrash of the Rabbis:
The matter of the "livnat" of sapphire is that it
was a brick that was before Him at the time of the oppression in order to recall
the suffering of Israel, for they oppressed them in the matter of making
bricks. As for the "the essence of
the clear skies" this refers to when the people were redeemed from bondage, for
then there was light and joy before Him…(commentary to 24:10. See also Midrash Vayikra Rabba
23:8).
Unlike Ibn Ezra who reads "livnat" as some sort
of solid construction (from the verb "liVNot" or to build), or some of
the other commentaries who associate it with a color (from "LaVaN" or
white), Rashi connects the word with "leVeNaH" or brick. He sees in the reference an echo of the
servitude from which God had so recently freed His people, and he includes it in
the visionary experience of the elders in order to emphasize to them (and to us)
a fundamental tenet of the new post-Exodus order: God cares! When the people suffered in Egypt, God
was not deaf to their cries, and when they were in pain, He was with them. In short, Rashi's reading emphasizes
that even while enthroned in His glory, transcendent and immutable, God is not
remote. He is aware of our plight
and close by.
It is, however, the Chizkuni (Rabbi Chizkiya ben
Manoach, 13th century, France) who completes Rashi's reading by
offering us a more disturbing and no longer extant version of the
Midrash:
Said Rabbi Akiva: the servants of Pharaoh would pressure
and strike the Israelites so that they would make more than their quota of
bricks…but the Egyptians would not provide them with straw so that they would
have to gather the stubble in the wilderness. That stubble, though, was full of thorns
and thistles so that their heels would be wounded when gathering it. Their blood would flow and mix with the
mud. Rachel, who was the
granddaughter of Metushelach, was pregnant and due to give birth but had to
continue with her husband treading out the clay to make bricks. The child was born while she was
treading and became encased in the brick mold. She cried out for her newborn and her
cries ascended to the throne of glory.
The archangel Michael then descended and took the clay, bringing it to
the throne of glory and fashioning it into a brick. This brick was placed by the feet of the
Holy One Blessed be He, as the verse states "and by His feet was the likeness of
a brick of sapphire." Read not
"sapphire" ("SaPiR") but rather "afterbirth" ("SHaFiR"), that is
to say a brick that was fashioned from the afterbirth of that
mother…
In the version of Chizkuni, the brick placed before the
throne of God was not only a reminder of the oppression but the final resting
place of a newborn child, pathetically born by his exhausted mother, with his
father present but unable to stop the brutality, and then summarily condemned to
perish in the brick pits without mercy!
The horror of the imagery is palpable, but we know from our collective
experience as a people that such outrages were actual and real, whether in Egypt
or else during our other exiles.
Most remarkably, this Midrash seeks to link together a most exalted
moment of spiritual ecstasy with a most pathetic and abysmal moment of
powerlessness and misery, thus highlighting the uniqueness of the God
encounter. Evil while the Pharaoh
reveled in such brutal excesses, the God of Israel grieve, even while the
Egyptians looked on with studied indifference, the God of Israel was aware and
concerned, even while the taskmasters pressed on with undisguised malice and
unbridled cruelty, the God of Israel resolved to punish the perpetrators and to
rescue his people from bondage.
In other words, one might say that this Midrashic
conclusion to Parashat Mishpatim, the vision of the God of Israel, His
awesome throne, and the pathetic brick that is placed opposite it as a memorial,
constitutes a profound insight on the nature of God's laws and His love. At the Exodus, God proclaimed that
slavery is wrong and that those who practice oppression will be held
accountable. At Sinai, He declared
His Decalogue, enunciating principles that are cited as the foundation of all
functioning societies. But in
Parashat Mishpatim, God transformed those principles into a system of law
that alone could ennoble human existence by reminding us at every possible
moment that human life is inviolate and that respect for others and for their
possessions is a sacred duty.
Shabbat Shalom