PARSHAT MISHPATIM - AND THESE ARE THE JUDGMENTS THAT YOU SHALL PLACE BEFORE THEM

[TorahZionist]

BS"D

YESHIVAT HARA'AYON HAYEHUDI
Jerusalem, Israel
HaRav Yehuda Kreuser SHLIT"A, Rosh Yeshiva

PARSHAT MISHPATIM
26 Shvat 5768/1-2 February 2008


“AND THESE ARE THE JUDGMENTS THAT YOU SHALL PLACE BEFORE THEM”

With greatness comes responsibility. The Jewish people were chosen by
G-d to be a light upon the nations, a priestly nation. Nevertheless, this
greatness comes with a price tag. One must act in accordance to the
rulebook. A Jewish slave must be treated in the proper way. One must watch
over his property, whether it is his animals or a well that he has dug, so
as not to cause injury to others.

In bygone days, the Jewish court of law - Beit Din - would settle all
disputes that might have arisen. “When a man will steal an ox or a sheep or
goat and slaughter it or sell it, he shall pay five cattle in place of the
ox and four sheep in place of the sheep.” For every misdeed, the Beit Din
would give their judgment according to the law and have it enforced.
Misdeeds cannot go unpunished, for the world is not ownerless, but rather,
the misdeeds must be corrected. In this way the people could see that
justice has been served.

In this light, Rashi points out that our parsha is juxtaposed with the
preceding passage that deals with the Altar, in order to teach us that you
should place the Sanhedrin adjacent to the Holy Temple. Here, in the holiest
of places, where the daily sacrifices are brought on His altar, where the
High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies, was the seat where the great
Sanhedrin would judge the people. Not only the great Sanhedrin of 71 sages
was located by the Temple, but also the smaller Sanhedrin of 23 was located
there, before the women’s courtyard. Daily, the people would come to the
site of the Temple, not only to bring offerings before the Creator but also
to settle quarrels between man and his fellow man. In this picture-perfect
setup, judgments were meted out, offerings were brought up and the world was
perfected.

But today, without the Beit Din giving out their judgments, and without
the Sanhedrin sitting by the Holy Temple, who will judge the people? What
will happen to the one who steals? Will he go unpunished? What will be the
law of the one who causes damage to his fellow man? Will the world be
“hefker”- ownerless?

Rabbi Akiva taught in Pirkei Avot: “Everything is given as collateral,
and a net is spread over all the living. The store is open, the merchant
extends credit, the ledger is open, the hand records, and whoever wishes to
borrow, let him come and borrow. The collectors make their rounds constantly
every day and collect payment from the person, with his knowledge or without
his knowledge. The judgment is the judgment of truth.” Rabbi Akiva is
teaching us here of the great principle that judgment is taken from people
every day, whether they realize it or not.

The Midrash teaches us: “Moshe requested of Hashem to reveal His ways of
conducting the affairs of the world. Hashem bade him to go up to a certain
mountain top. Moshe saw a man in the valley below. He was stooping over a
well to take a drink of water. As he was doing so his wallet fell out, and
he left unaware that he had lost it. Later, Moshe saw another man approach
the well, and when he noticed the wallet on the floor he took it and left.
Soon the owner came back to look for his wallet, and noticing a stranger who
had come to drink from the well, he suspected him of finding the wallet and
demanded it back. The stranger responding truthfully, saying: I do not know
of any wallet. The owner though, thought he was being deceived, drew a
knife, and in a fit of anger killed the stranger.

Moshe, who observed the scene on top of the mountain, exclaimed: Explain
Your ways to me, Hashem. How can You allow an innocent man to be killed?

Hashem answered: In truth, the carrier of the wallet had stolen it from
someone else. When he left it behind at the well the true owner found it and
took his property back. The third person who came to the well was a
murderer. He had killed the father of the man who was looking for the wallet
which he had stolen. I brought the two together at the well so that the son
might avenge his murdered father’s blood.

We see that even though the Batei Din - Jewish courts - are not in
service today to implement real punisment, still, the world is not an
ownerless place and Hashem, Who rules it, demands and extracts judgment
daily, whether knowingly (to man) or not. It is not for nothing, then, that
this is the week of Judgment for PM Olmert in the long-awaited Winograd
report on the Second Lebanese War. In the parsha of Judgments: For the world
is not an ownerless place, and those that strike out against the Holy Land
and His people will be stuck down.

May Hashem open their eyes to see His wonderful judgments.

With love of Israel,
Levi Chazen


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