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Mishpatim- Justice = Peace and Tranquility
For this year’s Parsha Lesson I will be applying the lesson that can be derived from the Dvar Torah to the world as we know it today.
Background
This week’s parsha, which translates to mean ‘laws’, predictably, discusses many different laws- specifically those that pertain to interpersonal relationships and dealings. The Torah discusses all sorts of law- criminal, civic, commercial, etc. in great detail. How should Beis Din (Jewish court) punish someone who murders? How should Beis Din address someone being injured by someone else? In this week’s parsha there are the myriad laws regarding property damage and one’s property (animals) damaging someone else or something else.
Our Torah is not merely a book of religious practice but rather it is an instruction manual for life, given to us by the Creator of the world, Hashem Himself. Hashem gifted us with the Torah in order to give humanity direction as to how to arrange society and enact laws which will lead to peace and tranquility.
One of the most well known of the laws in this week’s parsha, and very descriptive in a ‘nutshell’ of the Torah’s values and rules about interpersonal conduct, is the law of ‘an eye for an eye’ (21:4). While it is true that this law is almost universally misunderstood, as the Gemara explains (This doesn’t mean blinding someone else who blinded you. Rather it means a monetary payment equal to the value of how much more a seeing person would be worth than one who cannot see), it is nonetheless a good snapshot of what Biblical justice and rules are all about: making sure, to the best of our ability, that there is fair and equal justice for one’s interpersonal misdeeds.
Question
Ghandi, famously derided this law by saying ‘an eye for an eye, making the whole world blind.’ While this quote of Ghandi is silly- even the literal interpretation of the Torah would have only the one blinding someone else being blinded, thereby not spreading any further than to those who themselves did injustice, his sentiment of peace and forgiveness are appealing and ‘lofty’. What is wrong with such ‘high-minded’ and peaceful ideals?
Why would the Torah, written by a loving and kind G-d, have such rules such as murdering one who murders someone else, and not allow for Ghandi’s high minded forgiveness and graciousness? In many respects the ‘liberal’ ideas of society seem to be so much more kind, peaceful and proper. How is a peace loving and Torah abiding Jew to understand these seemingly ‘harsh’ laws?
Answer
The Sefer HaChinuch explains that in truth these ‘harsh’ rules which govern interpersonal conduct and dealings, are the foundations for a peaceful and harmonious society. With the rules of the Torah, which recognize the nature and essence of man, people can live peacefully side by side with each other.
Absent the rules of the Torah, the Sefer HaChinuch says, society would not be able to function. People would kill each other and there would be mass chaos, violence and suffering. The ‘harsh’ rules are needed in order to keep order and peace in society. Seen in this light, the rules of the Torah are in fact the most peace-loving and the most kind.
Lesson for our world
The foundational basis for discontent and crime in society is people who are not angels, but rather the fusion of a lofty and great soul with an animalistic body. Such people are jealous of others, have desires and lusts for things which others have, are selfishly determined to further their own wants and react violently to anyone getting in their way. Such people require the fear of the law in order to not act on their worst instincts. A world in which such laws are unnecessary is a denial of reality.
Besides for this reality, which is part and parcel of even the most perfected people, who still have an animalistic body with urges and instincts which affect their behavior; the irony of the people who espouse such high-minded rhetoric is quite revealing: Why would the justice of ‘an eye for an eye’ be thought of to ‘make the whole world blind’? Because such people look at justice as ‘revenge’. In a world where those who are in charge of law and order are vengeful people, then the whole world will be made blind.
However, one must wonder, why is it that people look at those meting out justice as being vengeful? Isn’t it a good thing for people to get the punishment that they so rightly deserve? Isn’t meting out justice, honestly, a good thing? Not if one believes that this world is the be all and end all and that the ultimate maxim of life is to ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you will die.’ In such a world view, one’s wants and whims is the purpose of life. As such, one who is depriving another of indulging their wants is the ultimate evil. The irony is that such a denial of G-d and an afterlife is what produces the worst jealousy and all of its results: stealing, violence, murder, etc.
As we see all around us, a society which is devoid of a strong government with an empowered police force to enforce law and order, is one in which anarchy and chaos will quickly reign. Those who oppose such strong consequences and ‘heavy handedness’ will make their case by appealling to the uplifted nature and loftiness of the human soul- which is capable of such ideals. However, what they don’t address is the animalistic nature which resides in each person awaiting a reprieve from consequence to indulge its whims.
Such people are advocating for a society which will bring untold suffering and misery to those in it. They are the ultimate ‘useful idiots’ in the furtherance of evil.
Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos,
Rabbi Eli Meir Kramer
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