Friday, February 24th

After reading about the climactic revelation of the Ten Commandments in Parshat Yitro last week, the Torah moves on to Parshat Mishpatim, a collection of mitzvot dealing with myriad subjects from the acquisition and treatment of slaves to what happens when an ox gores another ox. After the transcendent revelation of Sinai, we get into the nitty-gritty of laws of damages. Why is this?

I would suggest the message is straightforward. Lofty spiritual experiences have their place, but after the revelation, the real work of a religious life begins. It’s all very well to see God on the mountaintop, but we don’t live our lives at Sinai. The measure of a religious life is not the spiritual “highs” we achieve, but in how we treat one another day in and day out.

This might seem like a bit of a letdown. We just experienced the spiritual heights of Sinai, of revelation directly from God, and now we are to concern ourselves with stolen sheep and oxen that trample fields?! Even these mundane mitzvot are part of the Sinaitic revelation, teaching us that no matter is too small or too ordinary to be of concern to God. The shift from Yitro to Mishpatim, from the grandeur of the Ten Commandments to the meticulous detail of laws of damages, teaches us that even the most ordinary, mundane experiences contain within them the lofty heights of Sinai.

If we approach each moment, each interaction, each conflict we encounter throughout the day as an opportunity to apply the wisdom of the Torah, to apply the Revelation we received at Sinai, then the most ordinary moments of our lives can transport us back to Sinai. Far from a letdown, Mishpatim reminds us that God is in the details—that even the everyday tasks of life, of doing business, of building a functioning, just society, are an opportunity for engaging with divine revelation. In other words, the spiritual highs we thought we left behind last week can be found when we apply the details of the Halakhah to our everyday lives.

Rabbi Garth Silberstein