Summary

Mishpatim means ‘laws’ or ‘rules’ and gives us, what is often referred to as the ‘Book of the Covenant’ (Sefer ha-Brith), a self-contained code of law comprising a wide gamma of civil, criminal and cultic laws. The scene of our portion is set at the foot of Mount Sinai; where we find the people still awestruck by their experience of God’s self-revelation and the giving of the Ten Commandments about which we read last week. However God’s revealed law does not stop at the Decalogue, but with another much more detailed series of laws: laws on proper worship, treatment of slaves, damage of people and property (including among others laws on theft and compensation for loss of virginity), moral behaviour (including, sorcery, pederasty, idolatry, treatment of strangers, widows and orphans, taking interest, what to do with the first born son, meat unfit for consumption, false rumours, righteous judgement and how to treat one’s enemies) and ritual and worship-related laws (The Sabbatical year, the Shabbat, the festivals, sacrifices, and prohibition to boil the kid in its mother’s milk). The portion, and with it the Book of the Covenant concludes with an affirmation of the covenant, in which Moses, Aaron and 70 elders ascend the mountain and perceive an apparition of the Eternal One.

Commentary by Rabbi Kathleen de Magtige-Middleton of The Liberal Jewish Synagogue

As the Book of the Covenant is so clearly a self-contained law code, many scholars believe that it once was a separate book that later was crafted into the main Revelation story in the Book of Exodus. This theory seems supported by the mysterious affirmation of the covenant, in which Moses and the 70 elders ascend Mount Sinai and perceive a revelation of God. This episode has puzzled many a scholar because as far as the rest of the narrative goes Moses hadn’t yet come down from the Mountain, and at any rate he went up there alone, without anyone else, let alone 70 of the elders! For many this may be yet another trace of the human hand that was involved in the composition of the Torah. And yet, just consider how cleverly the Book of the Covenant has been crafted into the story! Our portion starts with laws on worship and slavery or servitude; and of course both these concepts flow like a red thread through the entire Exodus story; the Exodus from Egypt, slavery and oppression. Interesting slavery and worship are synonymous in Hebrew, derived from the verb ‘avad’ (to work), and in the Exodus story these concepts are entirely interlinked. Slavery is an involuntary state of servitude to a human or earthly master, yet the antidote, antithesis even, to this is worship, which is a voluntary state of servitude entered into with our covenantal partner; God the Force of righteousness and goodness in the world.

The modern Jewish theologian Martin Buber developed his theology of encounter as an ‘I-Thou relationship’. His theology is based on relationship; as social animals we live our lives always in relationship to other people, animals or things and most of these relationships are relationships of use (or abuse as the case may be), which Buber calls an ‘I-it relationship’. Only rarely do we encounter people or even animals on such a profound level, that neither of us needs anything from each other, at such a moment of what Buber described as an I –Thou encounter, we glimpse something of the Divine.

In terms of our portion one could say that in a normal I-it, ‘using’ relationship (for example we like our friends because deep down we recognise that they make us feel good or important, or because they do things for us, instead of liking our friends because there is something about them just infinitely likable), is somehow being in a master – slave relationship. Only in those rare cases that we encounter God in ‘the other’ we are truly free and these enables us to brake through the daily routine of our ‘salve existence truly rejoice and worship the Eternal One.

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