Curious things, legal codes. On the one hand, they give us a sense of what the culture or society that it comes from values. On the other, they tell us precisely all the ways in which people were behaving badly! American legal code includes some very curious laws, such as the California law that prohibits a frog from being eaten if it should meet its demise in the course of a frog jumping contest, and the North Carolina law against playing bingo for too long. Such laws not only tell us that the cultural milieu in which they arose frowned upon these behaviors for some reason… but that they happened with enough frequency to require legal structures to prevent them!
Our parsha this week, Mishpatim, continues the lengthy and detailed list of laws from God to the Israelite people; laws that would later inform Jewish legal code – although many of which were far from codified by normative Judaism. For instance, the parsha begins with the words “when you acquire a Hebrew slave…” which might give the contemporary reader some pause. Yes, our ancestors continued the practice of slavery mere days after finding their liberation from Egyptian taskmasters; and, they wanted to build protections around the practice, because, for some reason, they knew it was going to happen.
This week’s parsha is best read with a literary/historical/critical lens, because it allows us to look upon this text for what it is: a human attempt at curbing disturbing or damaging behaviors (as inspired by a God that cares about how we treat each other). Finding meaning for ourselves, as moderns, within this text requires a fine-toothed comb, but perhaps we can be satisfied with accepting these laws as, at their least, a snapshot of where we have come from as humans, and as Jews.
– Rabbi Callie Schulman