Thoughts on Parashat Mishpatim
Menachem Mirski
This week’s Torah portion starts in the 21st chapter of Exodus, that is from the chapter which follows right after the one which contains the Ten Commandments. The four chapters of our Parashat contain a series of moral and ritual laws, as well as rules relating to family, civil and criminal law. While no parts of the Torah should be viewed as more or less important than others, since taken as a whole it forms a system of Divine law, nonetheless over the course of history some of its laws, at least taken literally, seem to be more “relevant” than others. In my (and not only mine) opinion, the following verses merit special attention:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me, and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you to the sword, and your own wives shall become widows and your children orphans.
(Shemot/Exodus 22:20-23)[/perfectpullquote]
Although some may think that the Torah is very detailed when it comes to its laws, this view is actually quite superficial. Taken in their totality, the laws of the Torah very often turn out to be quite general and they need further clarification. And that’s exactly what rabbis have been doing for centuries – namely “unpacking”, to use IT terminology, the “compressed content” found within them. And the law regarding strangers, widows and orphans also needs further clarification. Therefore, as we reflect on the above quoted verses, it’s always good to check what at least two of the most renowned commentators have to say about them. For example, Rashi claims that the above mentioned law in fact applies to every human being; however, the Torah is deliberately placing special emphasis on people from these three groups because of their situation, which is worse than that of other citizens due to their vulnerability and helplessness with regards to the world they live in. Ibn Ezra shares this view, but he also adds that in order to deserve “equal treatment” the stranger must renounce idolatry. To put it in contemporary terms – the stranger must first accept the norms of the society they decided to settle in.
The above mentioned rule of “compassion” towards the most vulnerable is not only an ethical, but also a sociological rule. We know all too well what kind of people can – albeit not necessarily – grow out of oppressed orphans. For while adult people can – and often do – transform their suffering and frustration into good and positive actions, nonetheless a painful childhood riddled with frustration can hardly be viewed as something positive. For the most part such experiences increase the likelihood that such individuals will adopt an antisocial stance in their adult life: they might be driven by resentment or a desire for revenge, or simply turn into criminals. Therefore helping the vulnerable members of our community can be, if nothing else, motivated by the long-term self-interest of the society, by a kind of “collective egoism” of the whole community. The punishment which God foretells in verse 23,
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you to the sword, and your own wives shall become widows and your children orphans[/perfectpullquote]
in fact describes real, long-term processes unfolding in human communities: injustice is inherited and it leads to the breakdown of a society, to a deterioration of societal bonds, and in result to an utter decline of the society, which ultimately will consist solely of widows, orphans and criminals, that is of weak individuals and of tyrants. Will such a society be able to defend itself from any kind of threat coming from the outside, whether a human one or simply a natural one?
While the above mentioned commandments are of a negative nature, which is conveyed by the words “do not harm”, nonetheless sometimes they are expressed (which is of course consistent with other commandments found in the Torah) in a positive way, which is conveyed by words such as “support”, “help” and so on. And this is where things get tricky. I never had a doubt that not only voluntary, but also institutional help provided to the most vulnerable ones is extremely important in modern societies all across the world. But unfortunately things are not so simple and such an approach is associated with certain dangers.
First of all, not every kind of help actually constitutes real help. Before we decide to help the vulnerable members of our society, we should first make sure that our help will not be limited to satisfying only their immediate needs. Such an aid provided to someone who is socially unfit (to go back to the words of Ibn Ezrah), who is roaming around without any sense of aim nor purpose, or who is not willing to take responsibility for anything, even just for themselves – is often demoralizing.
And secondly, and this is very important, the situation and the plight of the most vulnerable members of the society is often exploited politically for dishonorable objectives, and often people/citizens find out about this only afterwards, when it becomes obvious that the aim was in fact not to help the ones who are struggling, but actually to secure one’s own privileges and power and the implementation of one’s own ideological visions. And this is where we end up in the hell of black-and-white and resentment-filled visions of the world. One such vision entails the often devoid of any flexibility and often abused division into “the oppressed and the oppressors”, “the victims and the ones inflicting harm” and so on. Such notions do not promote true understanding between people and while they might provide reassurance to those people and groups who are worse off, nonetheless in the longer run they do nothing to foster neither peace nor the healing of interpersonal relationships in a given society. In extreme cases this – to call it by its proper name – inherently Marxist interpretation of social phenomena could actually be viewed as a stance which incites crime. Such pitting the “victims” against those “who made a fortune at the expense of all the others” has recently yielded its horrendous consequences in Gdańsk during this year’s final celebrations of The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. Human life stories are too complex for us to be able to divide them into just two categories. Certainly among the disadvantaged ones there are those who’ve been authentically harmed and oppressed. But someone’s conviction that they’ve been oppressed does not in and of itself necessarily mean that they were really oppressed by others. Among them there are also those who are responsible for their own situation. That’s why when it comes to such matters relying on excessive generalizations or building entire alliances and groups based on a sense of victimhood is very dangerous.
To conclude, let’s not only not make the life of the vulnerable members of our society harder, but let’s also try, as much as we can, to make life easier for them, especially if it won’t cost us anything. Let’s also have limited trust in public institutions who are allegedly “doing our job for us”. And most importantly, let us beware of politicians, regardless of their affiliation, who might put the motto of “helping the most vulnerable ones” on their banners, but often do not really have their best interest at heart, but only the best interest of their own narrowly defined group.
Shabbat Shalom!
Translated from Polish by: Marzena Szymańska-Błotnicka
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