Parashat Mishpatim

Torah Sparks

Parashat Mishpatim
Exodus 21:1 – 24:18

Our Torah portion includes many prescriptions ranging across all sorts of human activities and concerns. Sometimes the variety of laws and teachings is so great that the verses do not seem to follow any particular theme. They are just a list of unrelated items.

Most of the time the rulings are put forth without explanation. Yet, in the midst of all these separate rulings it is often possible to select one verse or even half a verse and find plenty to consider, just from that tiny morsel of Torah.

In one seemingly random list of laws, laws that tell us what to do and what not to do, the Torah pauses and calls forth to us to command us – not to do something, but to be something: “You must be persons of holiness for Me.” (Ex. 22:30) In the midst of details instructions for all kinds of actions, the Torah gives us this vague, but stirring challenge. Indeed, I think it is so stirring, in part, because it is so vague. We are called upon to consider what it might mean to be a “person of holiness.” Is it an attitude, a life-path, a commitment – to what?

And, even if one were to be able to define what this status would mean, how does one attain it? There is a common conception that a “holy person” is exceptional and unique, divorced from the crowd. Here it is worth citing a teaching found in the commentary of Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz:

All the preceding laws, as well as those following, are in the singular: this verse alone is in the plural. The philosopher Maritz Lazarus calls attention to the fact that whenever the duty or ideal of holiness is spoken of in the Torah, the plural is invariably used […] because mortal man can only attain to holiness when co-operating with others in service of a great Cause or Ideal, as a member of a Community, Society, or „Kingdom.‟ Of God alone we can say, the Holy One.

Our Torah calls us to be persons of holiness by uniting in communities of holiness. That initiative is the first holy step.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein

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