Parashat Mishpatim confronts us with a breathtaking truth: justice is holy work—and it is complicated. The Torah moves from Sinai’s thunder to the fine print of civil law, reminding us that revelation must translate into regulation, and inspiration into institutions. Yet Mishpatim also knows something about the human heart. Judges are warned not to favor the mighty or the poor, not to take bribes, not to bend truth. Why? Because justice is never abstract. It is administered by people—flawed, finite, and full of interests.
There is an old teaching about slicing cake: if you want the pieces to be equal, the one who cuts must choose last. The system works because humility is built into the structure. Fairness emerges when the slicer has an incentive to be equitable.
Mishpatim seems to ask the same of us. True justice requires the adjudicator to choose last—to restrain ego, to relinquish privilege, to remember that power is not possession. But our world is filled with incentives to take the first slice—each daily news cycle seems to demonstrate this truth. Authority tempts self-protection. Influence invites favoritism.
So how can there be justice? Only when those entrusted with judgment cultivate radical humility—seeing themselves not as owners of power, but as servants of something higher than themselves.
