Mishpatim
Exodus 21:1-24:18
Jeremiah 34:8-22; 33:25-26
Sometimes the smallest words contain the largest meanings.
This week’s portion opens with the conjunction “and” (in Hebrew the letter vav at the beginning of the word ve’eleh, “and these are”) which most translations regard as insignificant. Typical is the 1962 Jewish Publication Society translation: “These are the rules that you shall set before them” (Exodus 21:1).
Yet the rabbinic mind did note that vav, freighting it with meaning. Rabbi Yishmael declared that the word links what precedes with what follows. Just as the Ten Commandments, which we read in last week’s portion, were given at Mount Sinai, so were the statutes in this week’s portion.
We should not conceive of the revelation at Sinai narrowly. To the contrary, the point of the letter vav, which joins the two portions, is to expand the contents of revelation greatly.
A similar interpretation is to be found on the final verse of Leviticus: “These are the commandments that the Lord gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai” (Leviticus 27:34). The rabbis emphasize the words “Mount Sinai,” which imply for them that not just the laws in Exodus, but also the entire cultic legislation of Leviticus were revealed to Moses at Sinai. Again, the impulse is the same — to enlarge the scope of Sinai.
The broadest and boldest expression of this impulse introduces Sayings of the Sages (Pirkei Avot). The text states: “Moses received Torah from God at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua. Joshua to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, the Prophets to the Members of the Great Assembly.”
Omission of the definite article from “Torah” breaks open the meaning of the word. The Torah would refer to the one that is written; Torah is clearly meant to include the interpretations of the rabbis. In other words, the whole vast textual tradition of Judaism flows from a single instance of divine-human encounter.
Endless diversity
While this fundamentalist claim gives comfort to the soul, it does violence to the mind. It is exceedingly difficult to account for the endless diversity of our tradition on the basis of a single author, divine or human. Divergence is the trademark of the written Torah no less than of the oral Torah.
This week’s portion confronts us with a striking case. Our portion defines laws governing ownership of a male Hebrew slave. He is to be condemned to that status for no more than six years, and to be freed as he came in. That is, if his master arranged a marriage for him during his servitude, his wife and children remain the property of the master.
After six years, should the slave prefer to stay with his master, he was to be taken “before God” where the master would pierce his ear, fating him to be his slave “for life” (Exodus 21:2-6).
However, the Torah returns to the topic in Deuteronomy (15:12-18) with significant differences. This time, the legislation speaks explicitly about the possibility of either a Hebrew man or woman being sold into slavery.
No mention is made of the owner intruding into the private life of his slave with an arranged marriage. It seems that the slave is freed at the end of six years with his spouse regardless of when the marriage occurred.
Even more noteworthy, the master is instructed to release his slave, remunerated for his labor: “Do not let him go empty-handed” (Deuteronomy 15:13).
And finally, if the slave chose to serve in perpetuity, the piercing of the ear with an awl was not performed publicly “before God” (i.e., at a nearby sanctuary), but at home in a private ceremony.
To compare these texts is to discover a common core (limiting the slavery of a fellow-Hebrew to six years) surrounded by a cluster of divergent details. The propensity of rabbinic tradition is to iron out these discrepancies to preserve the unity of the Torah.
Modern scholarship accounts for them in terms of multiple authors. Exodus and Deuteronomy do not share the same patrimony. The latter of the two texts, Deuteronomy, exhibits a distinctive style, ideology and humanizing tendency.
But the real point of this comparison is to argue that rejection of Torah mi’Sinai — of the claim for an all-inclusive, single and internally consistent revelation at Sinai — does not diminish the sanctity of our sacred texts.
They are holy to me because they record the religious experience and dialogue of an unbroken interaction with God. They command me because millennia ago, Israel generated them and accepted them and died for them, the distillation of an evolving religious sensibility and a national quest, to be a universal inspiration.
I revere them because they were a haven and homeland for my tormented people. And I study them because in their ancient, unique and compelling words the echo of God’s voice continues to reverberate.
Rabbi Ismar Schorsch is the former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
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