But if there is a fatality, you shall give a life for

a life,

an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,

a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot.

(Shemot 21: 23-4)

Between the Plain

Meaning of Scripture and the Halakhah

A life for a life,

an eye for an eye… a hand for a hand – A life he pays; he does

not pay money for life.

Rabbi says: a life for a life – money. Do you say "money" or

is it "death"? We expound: Here we read shita- "impose",

and elsewhere we read shita – just as there the reference is to monetary

compensation, so here, too, it is monetary compensation.

An eye for an eye ­money. Do you say "money", or is it

really an eye? Rabbi Eliezar used to say: One who strikes the life an animal

is to pay for it – but one who strikes down a human is to be put to death – Scripture

juxtaposes damages to a human with damages to an animal; just damage to an

animal is punished by monetary fine, so damage to a human is punished by

monetary fine.

(Mekhilta, Mishpatim

Parasha 8: 90-91)

An eye for an eye – This would have been in accordance

with pure justice, which [demands] punishment identical to the injury, but

tradition states that monetary compensation should be paid (Perek HaHovel) because we are imperfect

in our measures and we might exceed [in meting out punishment] the measure for

which he is guilty.

(Sefrono Shemot 21:24)

Which you place

before them

Aviad Stolman

It seems that the nature of the Ten

Commandments was never clear. In his commentary on our parasha, RaMBaN forwards

the claim that the Ten Commandments constitute an outline, they are chapter

headings for the more detailed halakhic passages that follow them. This insight

allowed RaMBaN to explain why Moses repeats the prohibition do not make with

Me gods of silver and gods of gold in the end of parashat Yitro, and why

parashat Mishpatim includes further details regarding idolatry. RaMBaN also

points out that Mishpatim includes passages detailing laws concerning the

honoring of parents, the prohibition against murder, and the prohibition

against adultery, three topics found in the Ten Commandments.

In keeping with this reading, RaMBaN links

the passages of property law found in Mishpatim with the commandment You

shall not covet: "For if someone does not know the law regarding a house,

a field, or other property, he will think that they are his own, and he will

covet them and take them for himself. That is why it says place before them:

they will enforce just laws between them, and they will not covet that which is

not theirs according to law." And why does parashat Mishpatim begin with

property laws rather than with other topics dealt with by the Ten Commandments?

RaMBaN answers this by citing the midrash: "The entire Torah is dependent

upon justice, that is why the Holy One, blessed be He, gave laws after [giving]

the Ten Commandments."

Whether or not we accept RaMBaN's

explanation, there is no doubt that the Torah attributes supreme importance to

property laws. Furthermore, those who study Torah value these laws highly: the

yeshiva world studies them intensely, and even grade schools begin Talmud study

with the chapter Ailu Metziyot, which is devoted to the laws of lost

property. It appears that, historically speaking, the laws of the festivals and

even of kashrut did not enjoy the same intense attention that was applied to

the study of the Torah's civil law. This demands explanation: why did the heads

of the yeshivot have their students devote most of their time to these matters?

After all, the Torah is a religious program – why make the social-economic

order into the central focus of religious scholarship?

As mentioned above, "The entire Torah is

dependent upon justice," and this notion finds expression in the fact that

civil laws are among the first to be transmitted at Mount Sinai. It is

understandable why the Torah goes into labor law, since it reflects a basic

conception of social justice and the Torah's labor laws diverge from the

efficient ordering of relations between members of society. But what of the

Torah's dispositive laws: why should the Torah care about the levels of

compensation owed by paid and unpaid guardians to the owner of a cow they were

tending if it is lost, stolen, or damaged?

The classical religious approach seems to say

that this question has a simple answer; the Torah is not concerned with merely

efficient and convenient arrangements of social life. The Torah presents us

with a divine system of law which is, of course, perfect and obligatory. This

system is suited to us, just as a diet based on scientific investigation of the

human body is suited to us. Just as every deviation from the dietician's or

physician's instructions may end in serious illness, so too any deviation from

the Torah's laws may bring social or moral trouble in its wake. Therefore, if

today's reality does not seem relevant to the Torah's laws, we must change

ourselves and leave the Torah's laws as they are.

About twenty years ago Rabbi Yaakov Ariel

published an article in this spirit criticizing the discourse of Israel's civil

courts. He wrote that since "life in Israeli society has a divine purpose

and order, it is the divine measure of justice which delineates – in its

supreme wisdom – the limits of each person's rights, obligations, and ownership

of property and the mode of punishment owed to those who deviate from this

limit or do injury to it. Any deviation from the precise measures set out by

the blessed God's wisdom has something of theft and iniquity to it, which

endanger society's existence." According to those who hold this view, the

Torah's legal system represents a world view of literalist divine morality that

we must aspire to uphold. The Torah presents us with the perfect,

divine, and unique law, and, therefore, it would be a mistake to legislate any

alternative system of law. In his article, Al HaMitziyut HaMishpatit

BeMishnat HaRaMBaM ["On Legal Reality in the RaMBaM's

Philosophy"], Prof. David Henshke describes this approach: "The Torah,

which was stored away 94 generations before the creation of the world, is not

just a system of law given to a pre-existent world. Torah does not succeed the world;

rather, it exists in parallel to the world and even precedes it. The Torah,

which was written in black fire on white fire, is not a law applying to reality

and based upon the data of reality, rather, it is a reality in its own

right."

Alternatives can be offered, and I think one

such alternative is well expressed by RaMBaM. According to his approach, the

social order described by the Torah is not necessarily perfect. The laws of the

Torah can certainly become ill-suited to changing times, as RaMBaM explicitly

states: "God knew that the judgments of the Law will always require an

extension in some cases and curtailment in others, according to the variety of

places, events, and circumstances" (Guide

for the Perplexed 3:41, Friedlander translation).

According to RaMBaM, the Torah also sets up a

civil law because proper social life is the basis for fruitful spiritual life,

which is the Torah's highest goal. He states that, "The general object of

the Law is twofold: the well-being of the soul, and the well-being of the body…

The well-being of the body is established by a proper management of the

relations in which we live one to another… removing all violence from our

midst: that is to say, that we do not do every one as he pleases, desires, and

is able to do; but every one of us does that which contributes towards the

common welfare." True, "of these two objects, the one, the well-being

of the soul, or the communication of correct opinions, comes undoubtedly first

in rank, but the other, the well-being of the body, the government of the

state, and the establishment of the best possible relations among men, is

anterior in nature and time… The latter object is required first; it is also

treated [in the Law] most carefully and most minutely, because the well-being

of the soul can only be obtained after that of the body has been secured (ibid, 3:27).

The Torah does relate to "the government

of the state, and the establishment of the best possible relations among men"

but it does not necessarily intend to present a perfect divine solution to all

inter-human conflicts. The Torah's divinity is not demonstrated by the

perfection of its laws – on the contrary, those laws need amending in each new

generation. According to RaMBaM, the Torah's divinity is not found in its

offering a perfect law that is suitable for every situation, but rather in its

being concerned with "both improvement of physical conditions and of

faith" (2:40).

One might ask: if the Torah offers merely a plausible

rather than a perfect law, why are we prohibited from updating it on occasion? RaMBaM

offers a surprising response: "That would disrupt the Torah's ordering of

things and cause people to believe it did not come from God." If the

halakhic sages change the Halakhah, the masses will conclude that the Halakhah

is a human, rather than a divine, creation. The masses believe that only a

human law could be changeable and that a divine law must not undergo change. We

do not accept the Torah's dictates because it is especially moral, but because rather

the rule of Torah would be undermined if we changed it often.

It is important to mention that RaMBaM

emphasizes that the halakhic system contains its own internal mechanisms for

self-correction and up-dating. These are headed by the Great Court and they

work with moderation and do not endanger religion. In our own day, the halakhic

sages "who are engaged in the study of Torah day and night, and who are

among the those who have transmitted tradition, one man hearing it from the

other, right up to those who heard it from our Rabbi Moses" are the ones

who are capable of finding the balance between the ancient sources and a

complicated and changing reality.

Our modern Western outlook views religion as

something draped over our normative lives. We tend to give the halakhah a

defined place in our lives. I believe that most of us support a degree of

separation between religion and the state. To our mind, religion should limit

itself and avoid taking over the economic and political realms of our lives. Study

of the Written and Oral Torah shows that this is not the Torah's intention. The

Torah is a Torah of life; it relates to the life of the individual and of

society as a complete whole and it makes no division between the religious and

the civil. In this matter it seems that RaMBaM agrees with the conservative

approach described above.

None of this requires a fundamentalist

approach that absolutely sanctifies the text, ruling society with a petrified

law that is never renewed or updated to meet the demands of the hour. In their creative

and sometimes daring interpretations of parashat Mishpatim, the Sages

delineated the manner in which we should read the sources and renew the

halakhah. The Talmudic rabbis, the Rishonim, and the great halakhic Poskim

follow in their path of critical thinking interpretative virtuosity, which

bridges gaps of time and place, giving us a Torah of life.

The author of this drasha is Curator of

the Judaica collections in the National Library of Israel.

And his master shall bore his ear with an awl, and he shall serve

him forever

The servants of

time are servants of servants – The servant of God alone is free.

(Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi)

Why was the ear chosen over all other organs of the body for piercing?

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai said (Kiddushin 22b): This ear, which heard at Sinai, You

shall not steal – yet went and stole – let it be pierced. And if the person

chose to sell himself into servitude, that ear which heard at Sinai For the Children of Israel are servants

unto Me (Vayikra

25:55) – yet went and acquired a master for himself – let it be

pierced.

Rabbi Shimon expounded

this verse, deriving a "precious stone" [i.e., an important ethical

principle]: Why were the door and the doorposts chosen from among all parts of

the house? The Holy One, blessed be He said: Oh door

and doorposts who were witnesses when I passed over the lintel and the two

doorposts and I said, For the Children of Israel shall be servants unto Me,

they are My servants – and not servants to servants – yet this person went

and acquired a master for himself, let him be pierced in front of them.

(Rashi, Shemot

21:6)

And he shall serve

him forever [le'olam] – for the

period of a Jubilee – there being no longer period of time in the Jewish calendar. Exodus to freedom is like a renewal of the world

shall return to his original status of freedom.

(Ibn Ezra, Shemot ad loc)

If the laborer had

already begun to work, but changed his mind in the middle of the day, he may

leave; even if he already received his wages and has not the money to repay the

hirer, he may still retract and the wages [to be returned] will be considered a

debt, as is written: For the Children of Israel are servants unto Me (Vayikra 25:55) – not

servants to servants.

(Shulkhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 333:3).

You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe

will blind the clear sighted and corrupt words that are right. (Shemot 23:8)

Will blind – Just as eyesight is used metaphorically to

refer to the heart and the mind's judgment, so too its opposite – blindness –

is used metaphorically to refer to lack of understanding of clear and obvious

facts. The meaning is that bribery sways the heart from the path of justice and

darkens the mind's light, so much so that the sighted becomes blind, he does

not see things as they truly are, and the words of the righteous in judgment –

the upright – will appear crooked and distorted in his eyes.

(R. Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio Shemot 23:8)

The Yarok (Green) Association sent us he following letter, which we

gladly publish.

To: The Editor of Shabbat Shalom

Regarding: The Tav Yarok ["Green Seal of Approval"] for

parashat hashavua sheets.

As part of the Green Now association's activities, we are initiating

various changes in the religious community. One of these is related to the

crisis in the global use of paper.

By its nature, the religious community uses large quantities of paper,

and due to halakhic problems involving geniza [the proper treatment of

holy texts] much of that paper is burned or buried, rather than recycled. Geniza

papers are, of course, not recycled, but recycling is part of the commandment bal

tashchit ["Do not destroy" (or waste)]. As religious people we

are especially obliged to find ways to reduce the use of paper. The use of

paper causes a great deal of environmental damage, including the felling of

forests, the production of paper, and the air pollution associated with

shipping. Furthermore, the geniza problem has recently become serious due to

the limited ability of the authorities to collect and process the large

quantities now generated.

What is the Tav Yarok?

Following halakhic consultations with various rabbis, most importantly, Rabbi

Yaakov Ariel, SheLITA, a halakhic decision on the matter has been reached. Halakhah

presents us with two central criteria for avoiding the obligation of geniza:

1) The pamphlet must not include any of the seven names of God whose

erasure is prohibited, such as El, Elohim, the Tetragrammaton,

etc. They may be replaced by the Hebrew letters hey, dalet, or the substitutes

Elokim, etc., or they may be spelled with dashes separating the letters

from each other.

2) Complete biblical verses should not appear in the pamphlet, but

partial quotations are acceptable.

Any pamphlet that fulfills these conditions will receive the Tav Yarok,

signifying that it is suitable for recycling. It is important to mention that

the print is completely erased during the recycling process, making the

recycled paper suitable for non-sacred use. Of course, the pamphlets should not

be disrespectfully thrown into regular trash receptacles, but rather to those

reserved for recycling and designated "paper only." We are also campaigning

among the broader public in order to explain the meaning of Tav Yarok and to

encourage people to read the pamphlets that are stamped with it.

Respectfully,

Yishai Tzviel-Lubitz

Activities Coordinator of Yarok Achshav

Green.now@gmail.com

052-5217459

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