02-20-2025 Torah Commentary

Normally we do not combine last week’s parashah, Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23), with this week’s parashah “Mishpatim” (Exodus 21:1-24:18). Due to last week being Tu b’Shvat, however, this week we study a double parashah.

It is in Parashat Yitro that we read the Aseret Dibbrot, or as they are commonly mistranslated into English as the Ten Commandments. It is in Mishpatim, this week’s parashah, that Moses’ father-in-law, Yitro, taught Moses that leaders must learn the art of inspiring others to help in nation building and that good leaders do not have to be brilliant, but need to know how to choose brilliant people and then get out of their way and let them do their job. Yitro taught Moses the importance of delegating, of involving others. His message to Moses was that no man is G-d and each of us needs the help of trusted associates.

To a great extent, this weeks section is the mirror image of last weeks parashah. In Parashat Yitro, we learned the basics as Yitro taught his son-in-law the broad general concepts/theories of law. Now in Parashat Mishpatim these concepts are fleshed out. These two sections demonstrate that we reach our goals by combining the abstract or macro level thinking with specific facts and details.

Mishpatim is not like other ancient Middle Eastern systems of law. For example, the parashah begins with the question of “avdut” meaning: “slavery” or “indentured servitude”.  Mishpatim’s legal codes begin with the rights of a slave, and then they quickly progress to other codes such as found in chapter 21. In chapter 21, verses 5-6, the reader learns that if a slave is set free but chooses not to accept his freedom, then his master is to “bring him to a door and pierce his ear with an awl…”  How come?  Such a position seems to be counter intuitive; even if the slave chooses not to accept his freedom because he did not want to leave his wife and/or children, once free there was nothing from preventing him from earning enough money to buy his loved ones out of slavery and give them their freedom.

Perhaps the answer is found in the fact that we tend to read the word “avdut” too narrowly.  In its broadest meaning, avdut may not only refer to bodily servitude but also to a state of mental imprisonment. Is the text pointing out that far too many people fear accepting freedom, which will result in their personal responsibility? How many people seek eternal childhood; how many of us choose the  “imprisonment of certainty” over the “exhilaration of exploration?”

How many of us are “stuck” (slaves to) in a job because we prefer to be in “comfortable pain” rather than the uncertainty of freedom?

We can link the word “avdut” to another Hebrew word “hitmakkrut” (addiction) which is derived from the verb “hitmakker” meaning “to sell oneself”.   The slave sold himself to the comfort of certainty and the addictm has sold himself to the comfort of his or her addiction.

In other words, an addiction is the act of selling oneself into the slavery of desire and paid for by the loss of self-control.

To be free is to judge oneself, to face the challenges of life, to explore the depths of our souls and to have faith in the future.  In that sense, ignorance is the desire to stay a slave.  How many of us desire to construct the walls of our mental imprisonment and avoid being free?