Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Mishpatim: Torah and Social Conscience

If I made a list of things that people tell me about Judaism that give me the greatest stress, on the top of the list would be when people tell me that Judaism is primarily a system of ritual behaviors, that the greatest concern of the Torah is that we perform commandments that demonstrate our devotion God, and with less emphasis on our devotion to one another.   In response, I would tell people that the Torah does not demarcate concern for God with concern for our fellow human beings; instead, the Torah attempts to embed social conscience into the performance of mitzvot themselves, a lesson we learn in this week’s parasha.

In Parshat Mishpatim, the Israelites are given that famous mitzvah about not oppressing the stranger, yet the mitzvah is juxtaposed to a harsh punishment that will befall anyone who does not observe the mitzvah.  The Torah states the following:

“You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in Egypt in the land of Egypt.  You shall not afflict any widow or orphan.   If you will afflict them in any way, and they cry at all unto Me, I shall surely hear their cry.  My anger shall burn, and I will slay you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless” (Exodus 22:20-23).

Upon first reading this passage, it may be surprising to see the statement that one must not oppress the stranger as not merely an ethical ideal, but a mitzvah with severe consequences.   However, when our rabbinic commentators examine this passage, they see this mitzvah and its consequence as arising out of the Torah’s desire to teach us a sense of compassion and identification with the Other.

Our medieval commentator Rashbam examines this passage contextually, and asks the question of why the Torah prescribes such a harsh punishment for anyone who oppresses the stranger.  He writes:

““Do not oppress him” to do your work since he has no champion as it is written: “I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them” (Exodus 3:9).  “For you were strangers” as explained in the very next verse: “For you know the feelings of a stranger, seeing as you were strangers.”  The severity of the punishment will match the intensity of his misery”  (Rashbam on 20:23).

According to the Rashbam, since the experience of the Israelites in Egypt was one where the Israelites as strangers were oppressed by the established majority, it makes sense that the Torah would similarly prohibit the Israelites from oppressing others when they are the majority people.    By extension, the mitzvah intends to teach of us the responsibility that comes with looking out for those who are strangers, for not forgetting that we might also be strangers, whether in the past, present, or future.

While the Rashbam’s limits his interpretation to the literary perspective of the mitzvah, the Sefer Ha-Hinukh, the medieval text that attempts to identify all 613 mitzvot and state the reasons for each, develops a more direct connection between the mitzvah and the importance of teaching compassion and understanding for those outside of the normative group.    The text states the following:

“This precept applies at all times and places both to males and females, and whoever transgresses it and causes suffering to strangers, or neglects to save them or their property, or makes light of them, on account of their being strangers and helpless, has thereby abrogated this positive precept.  Their punishment is severe indeed, since the Torah contains many such admonitions.”

“We should learn from this valuable precept to show compassion to any man not in his hometown, far from his friends, just as we observe that the Torah admonishes us to show compassion to all in need.   Through these moral qualities we shall merit the compassion of the Lord.  The text motivates the precept stating that: “You were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  It reminds us that we had already experienced the great suffering that one strange in a foreign land feels.   By picturing to ourselves the pain involved which we ourselves had already undergone, from which God, in His mercy, delivered us, our compassion will be stirred up towards every man in his plight” (Sefer Ha-Hinukh on “You shall not not oppress the stranger”).

According to the Sefer Ha-Hinukh, this mitzvah in Parshat Mishpatim commands us to recognize that just as we ask that God be compassionate to us, particularly in those moments when we feel most vulnerable, so too must we show compassion to those people we see in our community that feel, or are, vulnerable.

When we finally enter the modern period, biblical scholar Robert Alter asserts that the mitzvah of not oppressing the stranger is a specific command calling for compassion that demonstrates the Torah’s desire for us to be socially conscious, more generally.  He writes:

““Abuse...cry out...hear their outcry”: The terms used here pointedly echo the language used at the beginning of Exodus to describe the oppression of Israel in Egypt and God’s response to that suffering.  This law, then, like the previous one that explicitly invokes the Hebrews’ conditions of sojourners in Egypt, touches on the experience of slavery as an enduring prod to social conscience”  (Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: Translation with Commentary, 446).

According to Alter, the command to not oppress the stranger forces each of us to recognize that the Torah impacts us not only in our relationship with God, but also impacts our sense of social conscience.

One of the greatest dangers when teaching Torah to others is limiting our understanding of Torah to ritual behavior, assuming that the Torah only impacts us within a certain domain of our life.   Instead, the command to not oppress the stranger in Parshat Mishpatim reminds us that the power of Torah extends to every corner of our life, the spiritual, the ethical and the social.  May we challenge our students and ourselves to use Torah as a means of promoting compassion and social conscience, shaping a world that needs more people to care about the needs of the strangers amongst us.

Shabbat Shalom!