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53 Mitzvot of Parasha Mishpatim
« on: February 25, 2009, 08:04:00 PM »
Last week we read the Parasha of Mishpatim. This parasha is my Bar Mitzvah portion and it contains 53 mitzvot. This is the most mitzvot in any parasha. Here is an overview of the laws of Parasha Mishpatim.

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/in-depth/plainBody_cdo/MosadTitle2/Chabad.org/AID/1301/SagesID/1300


Following the revelation at Sinai, when the people of Israel committed themselves to upholding the Torah and received the Ten Commandments, G-d proceeds to communicate to Moses the rest of the mitzvot ("commandments") of the Torah. The greater part of the parshah of Mishpatim consists of this communication, containing 53 of the 613 mitzvot.

And these are the laws (mishpatim) which you shall set before them...

If you purchase a Hebrew slave, our parshah goes on to instruct, he should work for you no longer than six years; on the seventh, he must be set free. (The Hebrew "slave" would thus be more accurately termed an indentured servant.) If the servant does not wish to go free but prefers to remain in the service of his master,

His master shall bring him to the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost. His master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

(But even this "forever" is interpreted by the Sages as extending only until the Jubilee, which occurs every 50th year. At this time all Hebrew slaves go free, regardless of their desire to remain indentured.)

The indenture of a slave girl carries additional limitations. She can be kept in service only until she attains maturity, and she may be freed earlier than that, if her master wishes to marry her himself or marry her to his son. (Here the Torah also makes mention of the three basic duties of a husband towards his wife: food, clothing, and conjugal rights.) The slave girl, or her family, also retain the option of "redeeming" her by remitting to her master the value of the remaining years of her indenture (the Hebrew slave also has this right).

Non-Jewish slaves do not have limits on their periods of indenture, but a series of laws protect them against abuse. A slave that has an eye or tooth knocked out by his master must be set free, and a master who causes the death of a slave is liable for the death penalty himself.

    Criminal Assault

The penalty for premeditated murder is death. Unintentionally causing a death is penalized with exile. Kidnapping a person and selling him into slavery is a capital crime.

Retribution is exacted also from one who assaults another person: "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot; a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise." According to the traditional interpretation of Torah (handed down by Moses from Sinai together with the "Written Torah") these words are not to be understood in the literal sense, but as a judgment of monetary compensation that must be made by the perpetrator to the victim in five areas: (a) actual damage inflicted on the victim; (b) pain and suffering; (c) medical expenses; (d) lost workdays and productivity; (e) redress for the insult and humiliation involved.

    Laws of Damages

A person is also responsible for damage inflicted by his property:

If an ox gores a man or a woman, so that they die, the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be acquitted.

-- since he had no way of foreseeing such behavior onthe part of his ox. "But if the ox was wont to gore from yesterday and the day before, and his owner had been warned, yet he had not kept him in, and it killed a man or a woman," the owner verges on forfeiting his own life, and must pay a "ransom" to the heirs of the victim.

If an ox gores another ox fatally, the owner of the goring ox pays half the value of the killed animal; if the goring ox has a history of three past offenses, full damages must be paid.

If a man shall dig a pit... and not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it -- the owner of the pit shall pay; he shall return money to its owner....

If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, having allowed his beast to go forth and feed in another man's field -- of the best of his field, and of the best of his vineyard, shall he make restitution.

If fire breaks out, and catches in thorns, so that the sheaves, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed -- he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

    Laws of Theft

If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it -- he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep...

If the theft be at all found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or donkey, or sheep -- he shall restore double.

But the Torah also legislates laws protecting the life of the thief. What if a person kills an intruder breaking into his home? Is he liable for murder, or is it an act of self-defense? As a rule, the homeowner is justified in seeing his life threatened. But if the circumstances were such that it was clear that the thief in no way posed a threat to the homeowner's life ("if the sun shone upon him," as the verse puts it), the thief's life enjoys the full protection of the law, like any other person.

    The Four Guardians

The parshah discusses four types of circumstances in which a person is responsible for the care of another's property, and delineates the extent of responsibility of each type of "guardian."

(a) An unpaid guardian looking after another's property purely as a favor is duty bound to care for the object, but his responsibility in case of mishap is minimal. If the object is damaged or lost as a result of outright negligence on his part, he must pay; but as long as he has provided the reasonable care to which he had obligated himself, and takes an oath to that effect, he is absolved.

(b) A paid guardian assumes a greater degree of responsibility. He must compensate the owner in the case of avoidable damages such as loss or theft, but is absolved (by oath) from payment for unavoidable damages such as armed robbery and natural death.

(c) A borrower is responsible to return what has been given to him intact, or make good on its value, regardless of the degree of his fault or the cause of the damage. He is absolved only if "the owner was with him" at the time of the mishap.

(d) The parshah also mentions a fourth case in which a person is responsible for the property of his fellow -- the renter who pays for its use -- but does not specify the degree of his responsibility. (The Talmud cites two opinions on the status of the renter: Rabbi Judah rules that he is like an unpaid guardian, while Rabbi Meir is of the opinion that his obligations are identical to those of the paid guardian.)

    More Laws

A man who seduces a young, unmarried girl must pay a dowry and marry her. If her father refuses to allow the marriage, the seducer must nevertheless pay the customary dowry as a fine.

Witchcraft is a capital offence, as are bestiality and offering sacrifices to alien gods.

You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you at all afflict them, and they cry to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My anger shall be inflamed...

    Lending Money

When you lend money to My people, to the poor person [who is] with you, you shall not behave toward him as a creditor; you shall not impose interest upon him.

If you at all take your fellow's garment as a pledge [for a loan], you shall deliver it to him by sundown. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin: in what shall he sleep? It shall come to pass, when he cries to me, that I will hear, for I am compassionate.

It is forbidden to revile a judge, or to curse "a ruler of your people."

All firstborn sons must be dedicated to G-d. A newborn animal must remain with its mother for at least the first seven days of its life before it is fit to be offered to G-d.

The meat of an animal that is tereifah -- "torn" in the field by a predator -- may not be eaten, but must be "thrown to the dogs."

    Judicial Procedures

"Distance yourself from falsehood." Do not accept false testimony, collaborate with a false witness, accept a bribe (which "blinds the clear-sighted and perverts the words of the just"), or in any way unjustly influence the outcome of a trial, even to convict the most villainous criminal or to favor the most destitute pauper.

Follow the majority opinion; do not, however, "follow a majority to do evil."

It is forbidden to kill a person who has been acquitted by the court, or whom the court was unable to convict, regardless of how convinced you are of his guilt. In such cases, G-d says, leave justice to Me, "for I shall not exonerate the guilty."

    Avoiding Prejudice

Exercise your duties toward your fellow man, regardless of your feelings toward him:

If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.

If you see the donkey of your enemy collapsing under its burden, and are inclined to desist from helping him, you shall surely help along with him.

And yet again, the Torah warns:

You shall not oppress a stranger; for you know the feelings of a stranger, since you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

    The Sabbatical Year and the Three Pilgrimages

Six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its fruits; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat...

Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed...

Three times a year you shall celebrate a festival to Me:

You shall keep the Festival of Matzot: for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread as I have commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of springtime, for then you left Egypt...

And the Festival of Harvest [=Shavuot], the first fruits of your labors, which you have sown in the field.

And the Festival of Ingathering [=Sukkot], which is at the end of the year, when you have gathered in your labors out of the field.

[These] three times in the year, all your males shall appear before the Lord G-d.

The "legal section" of Mishpatim concludes with another four mitzvot: not to slaughter the Passover offering while leaven is in one's possession; not to leave an offering overnight; to bring the first fruits of the land to the Holy Temple, and not to "cook a kid in its mother's milk" (the prohibition against mixing meat and milk).

Mishpatim also contains a reference to the mitzvah of prayer: "You shall serve the L-rd your G-d, and He will bless your bread and your water."

    The Promise of the Land

Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared... to the [land of] the Emorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will destroy them...

I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little will I drive them out from before you, until you increase and inherit the land.

I will set your boundaries from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river... You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

    Moses on the Mountain

In the closing verses of Mishpatim the Torah returns to the revelation at Sinai, to complete its description of G-d's giving of the Torah to the people of Israel.

Moses builds an altar at the foot of Mount Sinai, upon which the people offer sacrifices to G-d. Moses then reads "the book of the covenant" to the people,

and they said: "All that G-d has spoken, we will do, and we will hear."

Moses then takes the blood of the sacrifices and sprinkles half on the altar and half on the people, as a sign of their covenant with G-d.

They saw the G-d of Israel; and under His feet was a kind of paved work of sapphire stone, and like the very essence of heaven for purity.

Following which,

G-d said to Moses: "Come up to Me to the mountain, and be there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, and the Torah, and the commandments which I have written, that you may teach them."

Moses rose up, and his servant Joshua; and Moses went up into the mount of G-d.

To the elders he said: "Wait here for us, until we come back to you. Behold, Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a case, let him come to them."

Moses went up into the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain... The sight of the glory of G-d was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain before the eyes of the children of Israel.

Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and went up onto the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.


One of the most difficult mitzvots I am thinking about recently is the command which implores the Jew to assist his ENEMY if his Ox or Donkey is struggling or lost. A Jew MUST return or assist his ENEMY in these cases. I am looking for more commentary on this commandment.

More information:

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2797/jewish/The-Logic-of-the-Mitzvot.htm

Great video discussing these mitzvot :

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/in-depth/plainBody_cdo/MosadTitle2/Chabad.org/AID/1301/SagesID/1300


Following the revelation at Sinai, when the people of Israel committed themselves to upholding the Torah and received the Ten Commandments, G-d proceeds to communicate to Moses the rest of the mitzvot ("commandments") of the Torah. The greater part of the parshah of Mishpatim consists of this communication, containing 53 of the 613 mitzvot.

And these are the laws (mishpatim) which you shall set before them...

If you purchase a Hebrew slave, our parshah goes on to instruct, he should work for you no longer than six years; on the seventh, he must be set free. (The Hebrew "slave" would thus be more accurately termed an indentured servant.) If the servant does not wish to go free but prefers to remain in the service of his master,

His master shall bring him to the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost. His master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

(But even this "forever" is interpreted by the Sages as extending only until the Jubilee, which occurs every 50th year. At this time all Hebrew slaves go free, regardless of their desire to remain indentured.)

The indenture of a slave girl carries additional limitations. She can be kept in service only until she attains maturity, and she may be freed earlier than that, if her master wishes to marry her himself or marry her to his son. (Here the Torah also makes mention of the three basic duties of a husband towards his wife: food, clothing, and conjugal rights.) The slave girl, or her family, also retain the option of "redeeming" her by remitting to her master the value of the remaining years of her indenture (the Hebrew slave also has this right).

Non-Jewish slaves do not have limits on their periods of indenture, but a series of laws protect them against abuse. A slave that has an eye or tooth knocked out by his master must be set free, and a master who causes the death of a slave is liable for the death penalty himself.

    Criminal Assault

The penalty for premeditated murder is death. Unintentionally causing a death is penalized with exile. Kidnapping a person and selling him into slavery is a capital crime.

Retribution is exacted also from one who assaults another person: "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot; a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise." According to the traditional interpretation of Torah (handed down by Moses from Sinai together with the "Written Torah") these words are not to be understood in the literal sense, but as a judgment of monetary compensation that must be made by the perpetrator to the victim in five areas: (a) actual damage inflicted on the victim; (b) pain and suffering; (c) medical expenses; (d) lost workdays and productivity; (e) redress for the insult and humiliation involved.

    Laws of Damages

A person is also responsible for damage inflicted by his property:

If an ox gores a man or a woman, so that they die, the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be acquitted.

-- since he had no way of foreseeing such behavior onthe part of his ox. "But if the ox was wont to gore from yesterday and the day before, and his owner had been warned, yet he had not kept him in, and it killed a man or a woman," the owner verges on forfeiting his own life, and must pay a "ransom" to the heirs of the victim.

If an ox gores another ox fatally, the owner of the goring ox pays half the value of the killed animal; if the goring ox has a history of three past offenses, full damages must be paid.

If a man shall dig a pit... and not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it -- the owner of the pit shall pay; he shall return money to its owner....

If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, having allowed his beast to go forth and feed in another man's field -- of the best of his field, and of the best of his vineyard, shall he make restitution.

If fire breaks out, and catches in thorns, so that the sheaves, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed -- he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

    Laws of Theft

If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it -- he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep...

If the theft be at all found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or donkey, or sheep -- he shall restore double.

But the Torah also legislates laws protecting the life of the thief. What if a person kills an intruder breaking into his home? Is he liable for murder, or is it an act of self-defense? As a rule, the homeowner is justified in seeing his life threatened. But if the circumstances were such that it was clear that the thief in no way posed a threat to the homeowner's life ("if the sun shone upon him," as the verse puts it), the thief's life enjoys the full protection of the law, like any other person.

    The Four Guardians

The parshah discusses four types of circumstances in which a person is responsible for the care of another's property, and delineates the extent of responsibility of each type of "guardian."

(a) An unpaid guardian looking after another's property purely as a favor is duty bound to care for the object, but his responsibility in case of mishap is minimal. If the object is damaged or lost as a result of outright negligence on his part, he must pay; but as long as he has provided the reasonable care to which he had obligated himself, and takes an oath to that effect, he is absolved.

(b) A paid guardian assumes a greater degree of responsibility. He must compensate the owner in the case of avoidable damages such as loss or theft, but is absolved (by oath) from payment for unavoidable damages such as armed robbery and natural death.

(c) A borrower is responsible to return what has been given to him intact, or make good on its value, regardless of the degree of his fault or the cause of the damage. He is absolved only if "the owner was with him" at the time of the mishap.

(d) The parshah also mentions a fourth case in which a person is responsible for the property of his fellow -- the renter who pays for its use -- but does not specify the degree of his responsibility. (The Talmud cites two opinions on the status of the renter: Rabbi Judah rules that he is like an unpaid guardian, while Rabbi Meir is of the opinion that his obligations are identical to those of the paid guardian.)

    More Laws

A man who seduces a young, unmarried girl must pay a dowry and marry her. If her father refuses to allow the marriage, the seducer must nevertheless pay the customary dowry as a fine.

Witchcraft is a capital offence, as are bestiality and offering sacrifices to alien gods.

You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you at all afflict them, and they cry to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My anger shall be inflamed...

    Lending Money

When you lend money to My people, to the poor person [who is] with you, you shall not behave toward him as a creditor; you shall not impose interest upon him.

If you at all take your fellow's garment as a pledge [for a loan], you shall deliver it to him by sundown. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin: in what shall he sleep? It shall come to pass, when he cries to me, that I will hear, for I am compassionate.

It is forbidden to revile a judge, or to curse "a ruler of your people."

All firstborn sons must be dedicated to G-d. A newborn animal must remain with its mother for at least the first seven days of its life before it is fit to be offered to G-d.

The meat of an animal that is tereifah -- "torn" in the field by a predator -- may not be eaten, but must be "thrown to the dogs."

    Judicial Procedures

"Distance yourself from falsehood." Do not accept false testimony, collaborate with a false witness, accept a bribe (which "blinds the clear-sighted and perverts the words of the just"), or in any way unjustly influence the outcome of a trial, even to convict the most villainous criminal or to favor the most destitute pauper.

Follow the majority opinion; do not, however, "follow a majority to do evil."

It is forbidden to kill a person who has been acquitted by the court, or whom the court was unable to convict, regardless of how convinced you are of his guilt. In such cases, G-d says, leave justice to Me, "for I shall not exonerate the guilty."

    Avoiding Prejudice

Exercise your duties toward your fellow man, regardless of your feelings toward him:

If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.

If you see the donkey of your enemy collapsing under its burden, and are inclined to desist from helping him, you shall surely help along with him.

And yet again, the Torah warns:

You shall not oppress a stranger; for you know the feelings of a stranger, since you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

    The Sabbatical Year and the Three Pilgrimages

Six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its fruits; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat...

Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed...

Three times a year you shall celebrate a festival to Me:

You shall keep the Festival of Matzot: for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread as I have commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of springtime, for then you left Egypt...

And the Festival of Harvest [=Shavuot], the first fruits of your labors, which you have sown in the field.

And the Festival of Ingathering [=Sukkot], which is at the end of the year, when you have gathered in your labors out of the field.

[These] three times in the year, all your males shall appear before the Lord G-d.

The "legal section" of Mishpatim concludes with another four mitzvot: not to slaughter the Passover offering while leaven is in one's possession; not to leave an offering overnight; to bring the first fruits of the land to the Holy Temple, and not to "cook a kid in its mother's milk" (the prohibition against mixing meat and milk).

Mishpatim also contains a reference to the mitzvah of prayer: "You shall serve the L-rd your G-d, and He will bless your bread and your water."

    The Promise of the Land

Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared... to the [land of] the Emorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will destroy them...

I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little will I drive them out from before you, until you increase and inherit the land.

I will set your boundaries from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river... You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

    Moses on the Mountain

In the closing verses of Mishpatim the Torah returns to the revelation at Sinai, to complete its description of G-d's giving of the Torah to the people of Israel.

Moses builds an altar at the foot of Mount Sinai, upon which the people offer sacrifices to G-d. Moses then reads "the book of the covenant" to the people,

and they said: "All that G-d has spoken, we will do, and we will hear."

Moses then takes the blood of the sacrifices and sprinkles half on the altar and half on the people, as a sign of their covenant with G-d.

They saw the G-d of Israel; and under His feet was a kind of paved work of sapphire stone, and like the very essence of heaven for purity.

Following which,

G-d said to Moses: "Come up to Me to the mountain, and be there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, and the Torah, and the commandments which I have written, that you may teach them."

Moses rose up, and his servant Joshua; and Moses went up into the mount of G-d.

To the elders he said: "Wait here for us, until we come back to you. Behold, Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a case, let him come to them."

Moses went up into the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain... The sight of the glory of G-d was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain before the eyes of the children of Israel.

Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and went up onto the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.


One of the most difficult mitzvots I am thinking about recently is the command which implores the Jew to assist his ENEMY if his Ox or Donkey is struggling or lost. A Jew MUST return or assist his ENEMY in these cases. I am looking for more commentary on this commandment.

More information:

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2797/jewish/The-Logic-of-the-Mitzvot.htm

Great video discussing these mitzvot :
« Last Edit: February 25, 2009, 08:10:22 PM by muman613 »
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You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14
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