Justice Is Holiness

Justice Is Holiness
D’var Torah for Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1—24:18)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Misconceptions about Biblical law have led some people to surmise that these laws are overly harsh and even cruel. Nothing could be further from the truth. While it is true that some Biblical laws reflect the primitive cultural background in which they originated, this week’s Torah portion can teach us much about the philosophy and evolution of Jewish law.

The biggest difference between the Jewish perception of law and its counterpart among the neighboring peoples in ancient days is that, in the Jewish view, no one is exempt from the law. Hammurabi’s code—preceding Moses’s by some 500 years—as well as other, even more ancient codes, reflect a very different kind of thinking: The king was above the law. The author of the law—who often presented himself a god—had absolute power over the law, amending it as necessary so as never to be susceptible to it himself.

Not Moses, not Aaron, nor any of the kings of ancient Israel could ever be of such exalted status. By positing God above all humanity, by making God the source of all law, no human being could ever claim to be above the law. Any transgressor, whatever his or her social status, could and would be held accountable for the crime committed.

A second element of Jewish law becomes apparent through a more careful reading of this portion. As understanding of human nature progresses, as societal conditions change, so must the law. The process of the evolution of Jewish law can already be seen in this portion, as ancient laws are stated and immediately challenged. Thus, for example, the laws pertaining to killing. Exodus chapter 21 verse 12 states the category (the pre-existing law): “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.” There is no disputing the harshness of this law. It is as clear as daylight. If you kill, you will be killed. Yet, to rational minds, this begs an argument: What if the killing was accidental? The following verses discuss this very question, concluding that a fair judicial system must be set up, even going so far as to call for the establishment of the institution of sanctuary—a place of refuge where an accused murderer can run to in order to escape blood vengeance, at least until such time as a court can try him. Blood vengeance was (and sadly, still is) the practice in much of the Near East. The Torah attempts to put a stop this lawless and bloody custom.

The laws of slavery—the first set of laws discussed in this parasha—show a similar progression. Though the Torah cannot put a stop to the practice, it does attempt to regulate it to an unprecedented degree. At least in the case of Hebrew slaves, the Torah goes as far as to command that they be freed after six years of servitude. Over and again, the Torah tries to put a human face on a class of often-mistreated and abused individuals who were thought of as no more than property, as objects of no higher status than any piece of equipment that one might acquire or get rid of as necessary.

The study of the laws of Mishpatim is in itself enough to make a person a better human being. We are called upon to show kindness to animals—not only our own, but even those of our enemies! “If you come upon your enemy’s bull or his stray [lost] donkey, you shall surely return it to him. If you see your enemy’s donkey lying under its burden would you refrain from helping him? You shall surely help along with him” (23:4-5).

The chief concern of this Torah portion, reflected in one law after another, is for the weakest members of society: the slave, the poor, the stranger, the widow and the orphan. Often the object of abuse, they are instead to be protected and sheltered. Their needs have to be addressed and considered: “If you ever take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in?” (22:26-27).

The consequences for breaking God’s laws sometimes come from a court of law, sometimes from God. So, for example, in the case of one who oppresses a widow or an orphan. Of such a transgressor, God will assume responsibility for vengeance: “I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless” (22:24). Direct and parallel punishment.

Yet, another punishment that often is quoted as being from the Torah, a law that shows similar logic, similar retaliatory thinking, is nothing but a starting-off point for a revolutionary and totally new way of thinking: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise” (21:24-25). The Torah understands the folly—and cruelty—of this law. Taking a huge evolutionary leap forward, the Torah has a better idea: the offender must pay damages—an eye’s worth for an eye, a tooth’s value for a tooth. After all, does society really need two toothless men, two blind or armless men—and their families!—to take care of?

Overarching all these laws (there are 53 commandments in Parashat Mishpatim!) is something quite extraordinary. They are all civil laws, governing the behavior of human beings toward one another and toward their environment. Sanctity, the Torah teaches, is not restricted to ritual and worship. The laws of holiness extend far beyond the walls of any temple, extending to the field, the street and even to our place of business. Yet, because these laws emanate from God, it is by following them (or at the very least, studying them) that we make our lives holy.

One can almost hear Hillel, the ancient and famous rabbi of the first century, teaching: “That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary; now go and study it.”

Indeed and Amen!

©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman

My Word: A Sacred Bridge

My Word: A Sacred Bridge
D’var Torah on Parashat Yitro
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

This week’s parasha, Yitro (Exodus 18:1—20:23), is a huge turning point not only in the Torah itself, but in the whole history of the Jewish People. For it is in this portion that Judaism turns from a system of religious belief into a complex and complicated judicial system. Whereas earlier—both in the Torah and in the evolution of Jewish thought—God was a Divine power with whom humans could communicate simply through faith and sacrifice, from this Torah portion we learn that these are no longer enough. What God actually wants of us is proper behavior. God desires holy actions, not only hollow words. Parashat Yitro contains the Ten Commandments, which go far beyond defining our relationship with God. Past a basic few that do cover that territory, the majority of the Ten Commandments have to do with how we human beings interact with one another. Yes, we must be holy unto God; but, additionally, we must be holy unto one another.

It is no coincidence that this parasha has two main storylines: In the first, Yitro (Jethro), Moses’s father-in-law, having heard of the successful and miraculous Exodus, comes to visit Moses. Yitro is a priest among the people of Midian; he is noble and generous of spirit, wise yet humble; and he mentors (OK—he lectures) Moses about the terrible way Moses holds court. “What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you sit by yourself, while all the people stand before you from morning till evening?” (Ex. 18:14). Moses wearies himself as well the people as he sits in judgment before them day in and day out. Yitro gives Moses a lesson in good leadership, instructing him to appoint judges and form lower and appellate courts, saving only the most difficult cases for himself. This judicial system would benefit everyone: The people in line won’t have to wait so long to have their cases heard, and Moses will have more time to do what Moses does best: Deliver to the people God’s word.

The next part of the portion has to do with exactly that: God’s word. More precisely, the Ten Words, or the Ten Sayings, or—as some translators would have it—the Ten Utterances.

The Hebrew designation of the Ten Commandments—Asseret ha-dibrot—implies that it isn’t only the content of the message that is important. It is the very word itself, its sound and shape, that becomes holy. From this point on, the Word—dibra—the utterance of God’s will in speech and writing—becomes a living vessel of holiness, as it gives form to God’s instructions. By absorbing the Word through hearing or reading it, we the people become holy. By the very act of studying Torah and deriving significance, meaning and relevance from God’s words, we transform ourselves and make our lives holy.

Each generation and, in fact, each individual human being, can find unique meaning from these Words. Starting with some of the most ancient laws of civilization, the interpretation of the Torah’s rules and regulations evolves through time, following a process that we can already perceive in the telling of this story. At first it will be God speaking the words. Then it will be Moses repeating them to the people; finally (later in the Torah), Moses will write them down. It’s a progression that makes the Words ours. When we engage in the study of Torah—all of us, throughout the generations—we make ourselves part of this long line of communication, not merely objective witnesses but rather active participants in a most extraordinary and eternally ongoing Revelation.

The Ten Commandments are the very foundation of a new Judaism. Whereas previously commandments came relatively sparsely, from this point on they will be coming on in droves. There are only 13 commandments in Yitro, but the very next portion will have already 53! Though there is some disagreement on the numbering of the Ten (see the differences between the Jewish and the Christian versions), there are basically two categories of law here. First come the laws pertaining to our relationship with God: The declaration of God’s uniqueness; the admonitions against worshipping any other gods (or even mentioning their names) and against making any physical image of God; and the law regarding the observance of Shabbat.

A bridge to the next five commandments is the one in which we are told to honor our father and mother. In the ever-widening circles of relationship, the close bond between parents and children is crucial. Unlike Las Vegas, what happens at home does not stay at home. We repeat what we learn from our parents—both in words and in actions. Beliefs are passed down through the generations. So, tragically, do lies, secrets and even abuse. The model for our relationship with the entire community is set at home. That is the foundation for who we are and what we can become in society.

The prohibitions against murder, adultery, stealing and giving false witness are also fundamental to our individual character as well as to societal well being. They are, respectively, Commandments number six, seven eight and nine.

The final Commandment could serve to summarize all the others, yet it also manages to go beyond them: Do not covet that which isn’t yours. This is the only Commandment that does not regulate what we do, but rather what we think. Because coveting rarely stops there. Of all feelings and thoughts, this one truly is a gateway passion. Coveting lies at the edge of a risky abyss. The tenth Commandment thus forms a border, a hedge against even coming close to this dangerous precipice.

For reasons that we cannot begin to comprehend, God needs us. In an imperfect world, God has a role for us: to be God’s partners in Creation. God wants us to become holy and join Him in this eternal quest. That isn’t done through faith alone. Faith as well as acts of justice and compassion are the twin foundation stone of Judaism. We may be as physically distant from God as a beginning from its end, but a sacred bridge does extend between the two: It’s God’s Word.

©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman

The Never-Ending Song

The Never-Ending Song
D’var Torah for Parashat B’shalach
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman


As far as miracles go, they don’t get any more spectacular than the one we read about in this week’s Torah portion, B’shalach, Exodus 13:17—17:16. The parting of the Red Sea is nothing less than spectacular, a magnificent demonstration of history in the making.

I am tempted to call it a miracle of God’s doing, but it’s more than that. Yes, the miracle is partially the result of an eastern wind that God raises and causes to blow all night long. But it is also a masterpiece conducted by Moses as he holds his staff like a huge baton, stretched out over the vast and deep body of water, pointing at some indefinite point between heaven and sea.

The wise Rabbis of the first century added yet another element to the story of this miracle.

It wasn’t enough, the Rabbis taught, that God made the eastern wind blow; it wasn’t enough that Moses held his staff out over the water. One more player was needed to make this wonderful miracle take place. The Midrash teaches that as the Israelites were arguing over who would go into the Red Sea first, one person grew impatient and led the way, jumping into the water yet before dry land appeared. This was Nachshon ben Aminadav, the chief of the tribe of Judah. Thus, as the Rabbis retell this story, it took three to make the miracle happen: God, Moses, and a representative of the people. It’s an important addition to the Torah’s perspective, a lesson that sometimes we tend to overlook.

Like all miracles, the parting of the Red Sea is a fantastic story. Whether it happened exactly as described in the Torah or perhaps was embellished by generations of storytellers and wandering minstrels is not clear. However, the symbolic truth behind this miracle cannot be doubted. How else explain the miraculous survival of the Jews through the centuries? The Jewish people outlasted every tyrant, every empire from the ancient Egyptian, Accadian, Assyrian and Babylonian down to our own times. Yes, it’s a history that is drenched with blood—Jewish blood. Each eon is marked, like Cain, by its own catastrophe, whether it was the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem, the crusades, blood libels and pogroms, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, or our own modern-day Nazi Holocaust. Yet, despite the bloodshed and destruction, like a phoenix, the Jews always reappeared, miraculously alive, on the other side of destruction. Our life force was not diminished by the terrible ordeals we went through. In fact, we emerged from each devastation renewed, with far greater energy and vigor than ever before.

How else describe this miracle of endurance, this amazing parting of the tides of history? Is there some other—can there be some other?—more powerful vision than this, the parting of the Red Sea, to describe our survival despite all our oppressors?

It’s a miracle our people have always held before our eyes like some huge signpost. It is nothing less than the very foundation on which our faith in God rests. We have relied on this miracle to rally us forward, to drive us fearlessly into the unknown future without any regard for the dangers that lay around us. Time and again, we saw proof that this miracle was true.

But this blind reliance on God’s saving power was also sometimes a stumbling block before us. When we relied on prayer, hoping for a miracle; when we cowered in dark basements even as murderous marauders set fires to our villages and homes; when we believed that at any moment the Messiah would arrive and lead us, singing triumphantly, through miraculously parted waves, onward to some mysterious, peaceful and blessed land, leaving far behind us the terror and savage oppression that we knew all too well.

Too often through our long history, we forgot the lesson the Rabbis tried to teach us so long ago: That miracles sometimes require more than faith and prayer; sometimes they also call for action.

It’s a lesson even God would have us learn.

As this week’s parasha, B’shalach, opens, the Israelites seem trapped. Having just left Egypt, they find themselves surrounded: To either side of them lies the unforgiving wilderness. Ahead is the impenetrable Red Sea. And coming up from behind are Pharaoh, his horses, chariots and best soldiers. He can’t possibly know, however, what we, the readers of this story, are told at the very beginning of the parasha: That the trap is not for the Israelites; rather, it’s an ambush being laid by God for Pharaoh. The Israelites don’t know this either, however, and they cry out to Moses. Moses relays their cry to God, and God responds with this telling command: “And Adonai said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward’” (Ex. 14:15).

If there is any lesson that could be drawn from our modern-day Holocaust, it is this: That there is a time to pray and cry out, and there is a time to take action.

Sitting passively and hoping that the Messiah will come and save us is useless. It isn’t that we don’t believe in Redemption. We do. But this won’t happen by just sitting and complaining. Redemption—the age we Jews pray and hope for, a time of peace, equality and justice for all—isn’t going to just happen while we sleep. We have to get there step by step, deed by deed. The Red Sea may have tossed and stormed, its waves whipped into frenzy by the night-long, fiercely blowing east wind. Its waters may have even begun to gather as Moses gave the direction with his staff. But the Red Sea did not part until Nachshon ben Aminadav, chieftain of the Tribe of Judah, took action and dove into the water. Only then did the miracle we were hoping for come true.

Our three-plus millennia survival is, indeed, a miracle. We are still walking on dry ground, with two towering, thundering walls of water at either side of us. At any moment they might collapse in—or so it seems. But they are held, despite all odds, despite all laws of nature, physics and history, trembling and powerless against our on-going, never-ending song: The Song of the Sea. Mi Chamocha ba’eilim Adonai: Who is like you among the Divine Beings, O God!

How? Who knows! It’s a miracle.

©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman

Finding the Reset Button

Finding the Reset Button
D’var Torah for Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1—13:16)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

When the wonderful animated feature Prince of Egypt was still playing in theaters, I went to see it at a matinee showing. There weren’t many in the theater that day; it almost felt like a private screening. Still, a few rows behind me sat a father with his young son. Every once in a while, the father’s voice came across the rows, quietly explaining what was going on. As the climactic moment neared when the Divine energy gathered into one powerful lightball right before the last plague, the Death of the First Born, the tension increased noticeably. Suddenly, a second before the lightball burst and the plague struck, the boy’s voice came across: “Can we go home now, Daddy?”

Sad and funny at the same time, the boy’s plea showed he got it. He fully understood the immensity of what was about to happen. And though he couldn’t yet comprehend the implications of the terrible disaster about to happen, he felt to his very essence how unspeakably fearsome it was going to be.

Parashat Bo (“Come,” Exodus 10:1—13:16) relates the final three of the Ten Plagues—locust, darkness and the terrible Death of the First Born Son. Yet, powerful as the story is, the narrator allows an interruption right before the climax, just before the last plague. Intruding into the narrative, the Torah inserts a section that contains two of the most important laws of Passover—not eating bread for seven days and telling the story of the Exodus to our children. The latter is, of course, the core of the Four Sons section of the Haggadah. Each of the four, in his own individual way, asks the same question, spelled out in this parasha (Ex. 12:26): “What is this service to you?” The wise son asks it with a sincere desire to learn the rules and regulations. The wicked son asks the question with derision and rejection; the simple son asks simply, “what is this?” while the one who does not know how to ask is silent, only looking at the proceedings with wide eyes.

The answer we give our children—each according to his abilities to understand—is that it was through these terrible acts that God forced Pharaoh to recognize and obey God. It was only after Pharaoh saw the full and awesome might of God that he finally caved in and let the Israelites go free.

Yet, there is another question implied in this terrifying story, one that deserves its own special answer: How was God able to distinguish between the Israelites and the Egyptians? With the Death of the First Born, it was the Israelites who defined their own boundaries by smearing blood on their doorposts. But how did the total darkness—the ninth plague—not extend into their homes? For three days the Egyptians couldn’t seen in front of their noses, but for the Israelites there was light. How was that possible?

While some people might try to provide an answer through some laws of physics or astronomy, it’s much more likely that the darkness was really symbolic. It was really all about fear—the kind of fear the boy in the theater must have felt. The kind of fear that immobilizes us, a dark hopelessness, a foreboding that makes us unable to see our way through to the light.

We all sense that fear at some point or another. It’s totally debilitating; it’s the stuff nightmares are made of, when we try to cry out and find out we can’t even do that.

So how do we break through that kind of darkness? Is there some reset button we can press to wake up?

Fortunately for us, there is. It’s called education. If darkness is also symbolic of ignorance, then knowledge is its antidote. That is why the narrative of the Ten Plagues is broken right before that last, most terrifying one. Our guide through the darkness is the set of instructions we receive on observing the Passover. By retelling the story “throughout your generations” (Ex. 12:14), by emphasizing our faith in God, by encouraging questioning, by our attempts to understand our place in the universe, we guarantee our ongoing existence as a people.

By denying his own people access to that light, Pharaoh doomed his whole culture.

The wicked son is the one who rejects instruction; the wise one is the one who seeks enlightenment through understanding those instructions.

That is why the Passover seder isn’t only about eating; it’s also about the history lesson.

Throughout the generations there have been tyrants who tried to control their people by denying them access to knowledge. Burning books, suppressing questioning and doubt, oppressing those who sought light, they brought about one Dark Age after another. We, on the other hand, send our children to schools. We encourage them to seek understanding and not merely accept what some people insist must be truth.

Freedom is all about searching for knowledge. Light and life are the byproduct of learning.

That one afternoon, the frightened child in the movie theater sensed the truth inherent in the story of the Exodus. He just didn’t know what to do with it. He thought going home—escape—would release him from the nightmare. His father’s instruction, however, would prove to be the right reset button. That teaching is what would enable him to grow, to go forward, to break through the boundaries of fear and ignorance.

And that is why we retell the story to our children, taking a pause now and then to study the laws, to think about them anew, to see them through our children’s eyes and then again through our own, to find eternity within the very act of learning. It’s our reset button.

©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman