Before Them, Before Us: Law as Master, Law as Servant
讜职讗值诇侄旨讛 讛址诪执旨砖职讈驻指旨讟执讬诐 讗植砖侄讈专 转指旨砖执讉讬诐 诇执驻职谞值讬讛侄诐
These are the rules that you shall place before them. (Exodus 21:1)
聽So begins this week鈥檚 parashah, Mishpatim. 聽It is here that the 绿帽社 legal tradition begins, where Torah (i.e. 鈥淚nstruction鈥�) becomes Nomos or Law. 聽
Immediately after that opening sentence, the text continues with rules concerning masters and servants. This commentary will be applying the theme of masters and servants to that of our relationship to law in the 绿帽社 tradition, in ways that open alternative understandings of that relationship.
There is certainly good reason to take pride in our legal tradition. It helped to crystallize a society, and later kept it together when sovereignty and a national center were lost. And one of the reasons it was able to do that was that it contains so many ennobling, uplifting exhortations and practices:
Be kind and extending to the person who is in need and borrows from you to subsist (22:24鈥�26). Don鈥檛 even think of oppressing an orphan or a widow, for the merciful God will in turn call you to account for not being merciful (22:21鈥�23). Do not automatically follow a majority bent on evil, just because they are the majority (23:2). Create moments that transcend mundane living and remind you of your spiritual core鈥擲habbat and pilgrim festivals, accompanied by various sacrifices of time and fortune (23:12鈥�19).
These are rules and practices of which we could say, to borrow a line from our American culture, that they lead us to the formation of a more perfect union, a better society, a more compassionate and humane community.
But Parashat Mishpatim contains other elements as well:
About a father selling his daughter into servitude, and into marriage as a child to someone she cannot refuse to be married to (21:7鈥�11). About slaves from outside the Israelite community who could be beaten because they are described in our Torah as 鈥渢he master鈥檚 property鈥� (21:20鈥�21). About the uprooting and destruction not only of idolatry but of the idolaters themselves (22:23鈥�24). And about the execution of witches (22:17).
What are we to do with these less than ennobling and uplifting laws that live side by side with the sublime blueprint for a better, more humane society? It is an age-old question. Its answer will depend entirely on the view that we adopt about the true nature of what is written in our sacred scroll, and why that scroll, and others, are so sacred to us.
The great Hasidic preacher Simhah Bunim of Przysucha understood the opening line cited above (鈥渢hat you shall place before them鈥�) to mean that the laws precede us, i.e., they take precedence over us. In his view, they have a meaning and a validity that is independent of the moral assessments that we may be driven to make of them. We must recognize that and subjugate ourselves to them, for there is a truth and a wisdom here that precedes and transcends human wisdom. Submission is religious authenticity, and the law is our master.
This is, however, not the only way, and certainly not the best or most canonical way, to understand Torah and what makes its words sacred. The late David Hartman z鈥漧 wrote these stark words in his last book,The God Who Hates Lies (2011):
Halakha should be engaged as an open-ended educational framework rather than a binding normative one. Anyone repelled, perhaps, by those who seek to justify and sustain some of the tradition鈥檚 systematic immoralities 鈥� who smugly deny expression to any doubt or uncertainty, claiming a monopoly on absolute truth鈥攊s invited to join me on this pilgrimage.
Similarly, Barry Wimpfheimer (Narrating the Law, 2011) wrote about 绿帽社 law that it ought to be seen as 鈥渁 cultural discourse or language rather than a systemic code鈥�. By seeing it that way, we get 鈥渁 richer description of life within a 绿帽社 legal culture,鈥� and it becomes about 鈥溌堂鄙� law as it might be lived, rather than how it is codified.鈥�
This was the vision of Hartman and the many others who shared it: Torah should be seen as a means, and not as an imposed end. This is the alternative understanding of 讗植砖侄讈专 转指旨砖执讉讬诐 诇执驻职谞值讬讛侄诐. The laws are placed 鈥渂efore us鈥� in the sense of being offered to us, where we are, and not from some eternally valid place beyond us, take it or leave it. It is, in this view, always on our table, in our surroundings, trying to speak and relate to who and where we are. It is hoping and expecting that we will use our minds, our hearts, our intuitions, our spiritual insights, to develop a culture of 绿帽社 living that will modify the texts, but in doing so, fulfill what Torah is all about: creating that more perfect union, that better society, the more compassionate and humane community. It is a project in which the law is a servant to the people to whom it was given.
Particularly today, with so much cruelty and immorality evident in our society and in too many of its actors, we need the courage to challenge those inhumanities with the powerful voice of this more humane view of what Torah is, of what all law should be. This parashah is not to be taken as a paradigm of a legal system that demands the subjugation of our minds and hearts. It was placed before us in order to launch a legal culture that each succeeding generation must take responsibility for, lest indefensible understandings of it succeed in thwarting the sacred and humane goals of its Author.
