Sermon Leo Baeck College / Sinai Synagogue Leeds

Parashat Mishpatim

The Shadow Side of Torah

If last week’s parashah (Yitro) was the wedding ceremony, this week’s reading should be the honeymoon. Last week’s parashah was so easy to fall in love with. There was the wisdom of Yitro, the romance of Revelation and the drama of the Ten Utterances to woo the reader. We collectively experienced the marriage between God and the people of Israel as we became His bride and as He presented us with His ketubah. So, a romantic honeymoon seems to be in the making!

There is much to love in Parashat Mishpatim. God and Israel are starting to build their relationship and working out the details of living a covenanted life together. Up to this point, there is much to be happy about. Mishpatim is the parashah that gives us such moral classics as ‘do not oppress the stranger for you were strangers in Egypt’ (Ex. 22:20) and ‘you shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favour of the mighty...’ (Ex. 23:2) and ‘You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. If you mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me’... (Ex. 22:21).

In true honeymoon-style, this is ethical monotheism at its finest.

But even new relationships can start to show cracks. With increased emotional intimacy comes increased awareness. Neither God nor Israel are perfect in this marriage. Both partners, so to say, bring their own baggage. Between the brightness of Mishpatim’s most uplifting words, the taboo, the difficult, and the hateful lurk in the shadows.

Amidst lofty sentiments of protecting the stranger, the widow and the poor, there is a voice of condemnation. Amidst verses extolling the beauty of the relationship between God and man, there is a voice fraught with fear and superstition. Amidst humanising the Other, there is a call to genocide. And amidst the rational, there is simply the bizarre.

A triad of Mishpatim’s most obtuse verses can be found in Ex 22:17-19. ‘You shall not allow a sorceress to live... whoever lies with an animal shall surely die... whoever sacrifices to a god other than the Eternal shall be proscribed.’

Here they sit, wedged between the realities of tort law and the prophetic voice of social justice. Three bizarre verses that deal with transgressions punishable by death. They feel taboo. They embarrass us. They cannot easily be explained away. Even our classical commentaries remain quiet. Rashi apologetically argues that these sins apply to men as well as women. Our discomfort is palpable and justified.

The verse ‘you shall not allow a sorceress to live’ was a cause of marginalisation and persecution among pre-modern women in Christian Europe. Scholars think that about 40,000 to 60,000 women were put to death through witch trials and lynching between 1480 and 1750.

The verse condemning bestiality makes us turn away our gaze in embarrassment. What on earth were the Biblical authors thinking by addressing such sexual deviance? It seems very Freudian. And of course, the verse extolling us not to make offerings to other gods lest we risk excision is as old as religious persecution itself. This is religious totalitarianism at its fullest. How many wars have there been fought in the Name of the One True God? I cannot even begin to list the death toll in the name of religion. These verses make us cringe and avert our eyes. Is this our Holy Torah which we dress so lovingly, read so painstakingly and study so ardently?

The play of light and darkness in parashat Mishpatim prompts bigger questions about the shadow side of Torah. It prompts questions about the eternality of the text, of modern sensibilities versus ancient principles. At what point does a text become so reprehensible that the only thing left to do is to... close the book and walk away?

In my own studies, I’ve asked myself this question. During my study of Talmud and Midrash, I have read texts that violently scream out at me. Texts that objectify women, that condemn the Other, that speak scathingly of non-Jews and that reinforce unhealthy social hierarchies. Women are treated as chattels, their bodies as battlefields. In these texts, Jews at the periphery of rabbinic society are sometimes treated with contempt: mamzerim (children from forbidden unions), foundlings, slaves, converts. I have been tempted to get up and walk out in disgust and anger.

But we cannot walk or edit out. We cannot rip the pages from our Tanakh. We must face these difficult texts head-on with the courage to stare into the heart of darkness; and then embark on a mission even more difficult - to mine these texts for meaning, if there is any to be found.

What do disturbing verses about witchcraft, bestiality and idolatry teach us about our world today? Can we square these with our values as Progressive Jews? They touch upon the taboo in human culture, they make us feel a little dirty and a little unhinged and in an ironic way they endanger our sense of moral purity, as the famous anthropologist Mary Douglas would argue. Does witchcraft allude to the fatalistic superstitions and fears that drive us to this day? Does idolatry reference how we bow down before gods of subprime mortgages and national debt? And does the ban on bestiality suggest something about how we abuse and objectify both our animals and our own bodies in an age of factory farming and sexual confusion? Or are these texts lost to us forever in their weirdness?

I am not sure. I am asking the question, not offering the answer. And that is exactly the point of a living tradition. Perhaps the wedding metaphor offers us insight. Torah is a passionate love affair but also a difficult relationship. Religion is a messy business and, just like marriage, requires work. We may fight with our spouses and wrestle with our darkest feelings. But in the shadows and through the cracks, there is a great and holy light. God never promised us a bed of roses. Is that not the theme of many a love song? But He did promise us a covenant that keeps us and challenges us and lifts us up to great moral heights. Even in the lows. Even in the shadows.

Do not be afraid to fall in love with our Torah. And do not be afraid to tell this great love of your life where she fails. That way we can help her light shine, upon the darkness of the world and the darkness of her own innermost places.

Parashat Mishpatim

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Sermon Finchley Reform Synagogue
Shabbat Mishpatim, 29th of January 2011

Tipping the Balance

Suppose you would participate at a high profile global summit on ‘fighting racism, combating climate change and encouraging economic development’? Ah, and throw in ‘immigration issues’ and ‘sustainable living’ for good measure. And you were asked to present your solution to all these momentous problems in a grandiose plenary session attended by the world’s heads of state.
Meanwhile, the media is abuzz. Progress of the global summit is being reported, blogged and tweeted around the world. CNN and the BBC have descended on site with film crews. Angry demonstrators assemble to picket the summit. The proposed change is not radical enough, the change is too radical. It is a cacophony of voices and opinions.

And you? You have to offer a vision and hold the line.
Could you do it? It seems boldly, if not presumptuously ambitious, doesn’t it?

This scenario could be considered analogous to this week’s parasha.

Mishpatim is abuzz. Our parasha is a cacophony of voices and opinions, of clashing interests and conflicts, of pressing moral and social issues. And yet Moses has to hold the line, after having hosted history’s most riveting plenary session itself: Revelation.

‘V’eleh hamishpatim asher tasim lefaneihem’, ‘these are the rules that you shall set before them’. The Eternal asserts the divine vision for humanity. After the drama of Revelation and Covenant, there is the business of the day to attend to after the ‘spiritual revolution’ that the Israelites have been through. New rules have to be set, new realities have to be faced, the building of a new society commences.
But none of this can take place without either profound commitment or profound understanding.
These ‘mishpatim’ are a commentary (midrash) on the ‘aseret hadibbrot’, the Ten Utterances. Living by the so-called Ten Commandments may be a lofty ideal, but the Torah immediately addresses her own concern: how do we do that? The answer is given in Mishpatim. We need detailed laws, no matter how noble our intentions.
The medieval commentator Rashi explains that ‘the placing before them’ of the laws refers to the necessity to not only make the laws known but also understood. We cannot commit to a vision for a better world unless we fully understand it.

Parashat Mishpatim is nothing short of overwhelming. It seems fitting that Moses was given leadership advice and management consulting in last week’s parasha, Yitro. How else can we expect even a great leader like Moses to hold the line of such a grand project? The plurality of the word ‘mishpatim’, laws, engenders the complexity of the task at hand. The rule of law is always multifaceted.

To the modern reader, many of the laws in Mishpatim strike us as archaic at best and barbaric at worst. There appears to be an amalgam of jurisprudence ranging from the Hebrew slave who may be set free but must remain with his master if his wife and children are slaves (Ex. 21:6) to the death penalty for a number of transgressions, including striking your parents (Ex. 21:15), punishment for the ox that gores a person (Ex. 21:28), laws dealing with theft, dowries and idolatry.
But then there is a shift. God foregoes His jealousy and calls upon His mercy. Immediately after the laws of idolatry, there is the prohibition against oppressing the stranger for ‘you were strangers in Egypt’ (Ex. 22:20). But this is not all. Mishpatim cites laws protecting the widow (Ex. 22:21), the worker and the slave, enjoins us not to bear false testimony (Ex. 23:1), to maintain impartial judgement (Ex. 23:7), exhorts us to be morally incorruptible and to respect the fundamental right of all life to rest: the people in and outside of our community, the animals and even the land itself (Ex. 23:10).

Perhaps Mishpatim is not archaic at best and barbaric at worst. Perhaps Mishpatim is ambitious at best and idealistic at worst. Where the Ten Utterances inspire, Mishpatim legislates. Mishpatim is our Kyoto and Copenhagen conference, Life Aid benefit concert and Jubilee Drop the Debt campaign rolled into one. Mishpatim calls for justice in every aspect of our lives. Not just for the powerful and not just for the poor. Not just for the environment and not just for the people. Not just for the citizen and not just for the immigrant—but for all parties concerned. Mishpatim bravely acknowledges the complexities of reality. Sometimes a slave loves his master and does not want to leave. Sometimes a judge is biased and corrupt; sometimes a man kills by accident. Mishpatim recognises the danger of discrimination, the spectre of hunger and the threat of environmental degradation. And rather than retreat in snide cynicism or in downcast despair, Mishpatim presents us with a vision. At the global plenary session known as the human condition, Mishpatim offers us a holistic solution.

The Torah is concerned with balance. How do we tip the scales? And if they tip too far, then how do we redress the balance? The Torah makes connections. No man is an island. Our world is indeed a ‘world wide web’, not in a virtual sense but in a painfully tangible sense. The Torah acknowledges the cyclical nature of time and allows us to see Life’s fractals superimposed upon each other: rest on the seventh day, freedom in the seventh year and a recalibrating of society every 49th year. The mystical Jewish commentator Nachmanides connects these cycles, emphasizing our need to be attentive to the interconnectedness. Our parasha starts with the small drama of individual freedom because ultimately, this is connected to the great drama of Redemption. The dignity of personhood and planet are not separate and competing realities. As the Torah states: (Ex. 23:9-12)

“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.
Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they shall leave, let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and olive groves.
Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labour, in order that your ox and your ass may rest, and that your bondsman and the stranger may be refreshed.”

The line ‘v’atem yadatem et hanefesh hager’- ‘for you know the feelings of the stranger’ is profoundly moving. Within the legalism dwells the true spirit of the law. We are called to live both integrated and compassionate lives. Rachmanut, compassion, is not mere talk but a vision which gets translated into action. Perhaps if we follow that vision, we will all be refreshed.

The plenary session of the great conference comes to an end. The microphones are switched off, the lights are dimmed, the media crews depart. But an electric charges crackles through the proverbial ether. We may not be able to save the world individually but each of us can do something to tip the balance towards Redemption. May each of us be granted both the inspiration and the strength to implement a great vision of justice in small but unique ways.