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 [olam]. Or another possible explanation: He 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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