1.
When the great storm subsides, after we have touched spiritual heights unknown to humanity, a quieter day arrives. The sweeping principles are translated into detailed laws, commandments, and ordinances. Prophecy is an elevator to the heavens. But once the prophetic moment recedes, what remains? It is difficult to preserve what has been attained. Human history is replete with failures to translate great moments into daily routine. So too is the history of our people.
One may cast a single thick rope to pull us from the pit of our lives, or bind us with countless fine threads that touch every dimension of our private and public being. After the Ten Commandments and the mountain ablaze with fire and the sound of the shofar that made our forefathers tremble, it is the turn of the ordinances that govern every sphere of life. A legal and intellectual structure is laid before us, "like a table set and ready to eat before a person," as the Sages described it, and we witness the pouring of the foundations for its first floors. Clearly, the written law is accompanied by an oral interpretation transmitted from generation to generation, developing and deepening in light of changing circumstances.
In the mid-19th century, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch likened the relationship between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah to that between written summaries and a scientific lecture delivered orally in full: "The book is not the source of Jewish law, but the living words of the Torah preserved in the oral tradition. The book is merely an aid to memory and a reference in case doubt arises." Over thousands of years, we have constructed a vast textual and intellectual skyscraper unlike anything any other nation has bequeathed to its descendants. We possess the privilege of visiting any floor we wish, drawing living waters with joy from the wellsprings of salvation to moisten the dry bones of our spirit.
2.
These people of former slaves, emerging from Egypt after centuries, were required to peel away the layers of psychological bondage that had clung to them. It heard the voice of God introducing Himself: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2). Who is "I"? The Lord. "Your God" means you require no intermediary to reach Me. "Who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" refers to the God revealed in national history and in personal biography, not only of those who left Egypt but of every generation. Each person has his own Egypt from which he must break free. Each era has its Egypt in whose entanglements we wrestled with God and prevailed. "Out of the house of bondage" teaches that even the great, efficient, and wealthy empire in which we imagine we have found refuge will never be our home. It will ultimately reveal itself as a house of slaves.
3.
The first principle of Parashat Mishpatim speaks directly to the first commandment, which addresses human dignity: "When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go free, without payment" (Exodus 21:2). The Torah of Moses was given at a time when sophisticated civilizations with legal codes and moral principles already existed. Moses did not entirely abolish the world that preceded him, nor did he erase the people's past to create an entirely "new man." He addressed institutions that were legitimate in his era and introduced change gradually. Over time, the crack would widen into an existential chasm, until institutions such as slavery, blood vengeance, stoning, and war captives disappeared.
A slave might sell himself due to poverty or because he had committed theft and could not repay it. Yet slavery was not eternal; it was limited in duration, at the end of which the slave returned to being a free citizen. This was not merely another regulation but part of the founding ethos, as if to say: "For this very purpose I brought you out of Egypt." The attitude toward slavery was the litmus test of Hebrew nationalism, distinguishing it from that of Egypt.
The matter was so grave that if the people subjugated their slaves and refused to release them, the kingdom itself had no justification to endure and was destined for destruction. This was the situation in the Kingdom of Judah toward the end of the First Temple period, when masters failed to free their slaves in the seventh year and instead turned them into permanent bondsmen. About a year and a half before the destruction, King Zedekiah forged a covenant with the social elite to free the slaves. But once the immediate danger had passed, they re-enslaved them. Thus, Jeremiah prophesied: "You did not heed Me to proclaim liberty, each to his brother and each to his neighbor… therefore I will give them into the hand of their enemies" (Jeremiah 34:17). The Babylonians would return to besiege Jerusalem, "They shall fight against it and capture it and burn it with fire, and the cities of Judah I will make a desolation, without inhabitant" (Jeremiah 34:22).
4.
The portion contains numerous laws and ordinances, including the democratic principle of following the majority: "After the majority to incline" (Exodus 23:2). The Tosefta recounts an incident, apparently from the early second century, in which Rabbi Akiva ruled contrary to Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Sanhedrin. Rabban Gamliel said to him, "Akiva, what is this? You thrust your head into controversy!" He replied: "Our teacher, you have taught us, 'After the majority to incline' (Exodus 23:2). Even if you say one thing and your colleagues say another, the law follows the majority." Maimonides ruled nearly a thousand years later: "If a court was divided, some declaring 'innocent' and some declaring 'guilty,' they follow the majority. This is a positive commandment of the Torah, as it is stated: 'After the majority to incline'" (Exodus 23:2).
Immediately thereafter comes the principle that justice depends on the arguments themselves, not on the identity of those presenting them, ad factum rather than ad hominem: "You shall not show deference to a poor person in his dispute" (Exodus 23:3). Rashi explains: "Do not accord him honor in order to acquit him in judgment, saying, 'He is poor; therefore, I will rule in his favor.'" As Erin Wexler quipped to a woman who claimed she felt "attacked": the fact that you feel that way does not make you right.
5.
After the many laws, Moses returns to point to the ultimate goal. The people left Egypt and received an eternal constitution elaborated into detailed ordinances, not in order to fulfill it while wandering in the desert of the nations, but to implement it in a sovereign kingdom in the land promised to the Patriarchs. Toward that ancient homeland, their faces are turned. In other words, this is not a private faith but a national constitution: "Behold, I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared" (Exodus 23:20). Soon you will leave Mount Sinai and come to the place, with a definite article, prepared for you.
The mission requires military effort to conquer the land. For this purpose, the laws and ordinances were given. Inheriting the land depends on them: "If you indeed heed His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries" (Exodus 23:22).
6.
The virtue of historical gradualism, which we learned in the Book of Genesis, finds expression here in the slow conquest of the land, little by little: "I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you… I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land" (Exodus 23:27, 29-30). The land required considerable labor to make it fit for habitation. Parts were desolate, inhabited by wild animals; crops grew with difficulty, and the water was unhealthy. Hence, the accompanying blessing upon entering the land: "He will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from your midst" (Exodus 23:25).
Indeed, so it was in the days of Joshua and thereafter, and again in our own era, the Third Return to Zion, when the pioneers had to contend with foul water, swamps, and disease. In the end, the desolate land responded to them, like a mother who preserved her milk for her rightful children. We have seen it with our own eyes. "I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River" (Exodus 23:31).
What is required of us is patience. And faith.
