Torah Tuesday: Reflections on Mishpatim

Embracing Responsibility and Personal Experience in Judaism

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

In last week's Torah portion, Yitro, we received the Ten Commandments. This week in Mishpatim, God gives us 53 more commandments. These commandments are the beginning of a foundation of a society whose aim is justice, fairness, compassion, mercy, and a sense of personal responsibility. Responsibility not only for you and your family but also responsibility for the quality of life in our community; Mishpatim is one of those portions that recognizes and reminds us that we are all responsible for those most vulnerable in our society, the poor, the homeless, the widow, and the orphan. 

This week when the Israelites heard the commandments aloud, the people responded with the promise: All the things that God has commanded we will do, and we will hear (understand)! (Exodus 24:7). It may seem strange that the sequence of the people's reply on the mountain that day was that we will do, comes first before we will hear. 

This brings me to an important concept in Judaism. The Israelites accepted the Torah with the statement Na'aseh Venishma - we will do, and we will hear (understand). 

I learned from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z'l many years ago that the only way to understand the Jewish experience is by living it, not by studying it. Judaism is full of rituals, food, and song - things that we can only understand through experience, by living it, not by studying it. In last week's Torah portion, we learned that all of us could hear and understand the voice of the Divine on Mount Sinai because God speaks to each of us in a way that only the individual can understand. The word nishma is written here in the singular because we each experience the Divine in our own unique way. 

We may all pray together, study Torah together, and eat together, but we may not all emerge with the same understanding from those experiences because we understand God's presence in different ways. Although we know Adonai Ehad - God is one, we are all different, and we experience God in ways that only we as individuals can understand.

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