Mishpatim: If You Don't Seek, How Will You Ever Find?

How often do you stop and take an overview? Of your life, your job, your relationships, your community, your theology, or anything really. Most of us get stuck in the day-to-day, nitty-gritty, sweating the small stuff, and we forget to take a step back once in a while and survey the lay of the land. But I think it's essential that we do. Every so often, we should ask ourselves: what's the main goal that we're working towards? What are the core values that guide our lives? And are we staying true to the objectives, ideals, and creeds that matter most? Think of it as your own personal Strategic Plan; and if you haven't begun one, or checked in with it recently, maybe that's something to consider doing... and I wouldn't wait too long.

A similar approach is really crucial when it comes to the Torah. An occasional overview helps us understand the Bible better in general, and it also allows us to hear the clear voice of the Biblical narrative, especially when we might get sidetracked by other things along the way. This week, we find one such major distraction. The Torah portion is Mishpatim, and true to its name (which means "laws"), it contains a tremendous amount of legal precepts (53 to be precise), including civil laws, liability laws, criminal laws, ritual laws, financial laws, and family laws. One of the most famous - or probably infamous - of these is "lex talionis," or "eye for an eye." Critics of the Torah will point to lex talionis as a demonstration of the Bible at its most barbaric: if you poke out someone's eye, your eye shall be poked out as retribution. Though in truth, for the past 2,000 years (or more), we've understood this as monetary compensation for damages.

Now we can get bogged down (or blogged down!) in debating the specifics of these laws, but my whole point at the start of this post was to focus our attention on the overview. What do we learn, as a more overarching rule, from all these regulations? And I think there are some very important lessons here indeed.

First, most other religions at the time had an understanding of what their gods demanded of them, but it all centered on how the people were to worship and pay tribute to that god. Our God, however, demands that we treat one another well also. God is concerned with all aspects of our behavior, not just how we interact with the Divine. Second, we see a lot of our legal system emphasizing the rights of the defenseless; the widow, the orphan, the slave, and the minor (and every once in a while women's rights are passingly considered...). We learn about how to treat our slaves, when to free them, and what happens if they are injured. To be sure, the Biblical laws aren't nearly as fair as ours today, and there is a clear distinction between the status of a "regular" Israelite and a slave or a minor. But the fact that they are treated as anything other than possessions should really not be understated.

When you focus on the wording of the Biblical laws, you may not like what you're reading, and you may not feel any meaningful connection to our ancient ancestors. But take a step back for a minute. Recognize that their law code was a vast improvement on anything else that existed at the time, and that our modern sensitivities in many ways would not have existed were it not for the precedent set by our forebearers. As a whole, the Bible is a book that cares about human interactions. It tells us that God wants us to treat each other well, to live lives of piety, consideration, and moderation, and to thereby be successful and prosperous.

To me, that is a recipe for contentment in general. If we can find a way to seek for ourselves what God wants us to find, we will indeed obtain true happiness. But sometimes we don't see that right away. Every once in a while we have to read a list of 53 ancient laws before we look up and realize what life's all about. But hey, as long as you get there somehow, right? Now you just have to ask yourself, what will it take for you to look up?

Have a great week, everyone!