Welcome to The Morning Scroll! I'm Rabbi Deena Cowans from Mishkan Chicago and you're listening to what will be a quick dive into this week's parsha. If you’ve been meaning to brush up on your Jewish literacy, or you’re looking for some inspiration, you’ve come to the right place. This week, we read Parashat Mishpatim, “The laws”, which, oh yes, we get a lot of in this parsha. We’ll start with a brief recap:
We begin with laws about an Israelite who becomes a debt slave, including their release after 6 years and the procedure for if they want to stay in servitude. We then get punishments for crimes against a person, like murder, kidnapping, abuse, injury; crimes against property, like negligence or rampaging animals; what to do when encountering an armed intruded, and punishments for arson. We move briefly to laws outlining being a guardian of someone else’s property, then back into punishments for things like seduction, sorcery, bestiality and idolatry, then back into the realm of the interpersonal relationships like prohibitions on harassing the vulnerable, such as a foreigner, widow or orphan, and commandment to lend money to those who need it, and a prohibition against lending with interest. Things then turn a little more granular, with laws against cursing a communal leader, eating non-kosher meat, how to offer tithes, and some nice laws about returning lost things and helping unload an overburdened animal. Moving right along, we learn the laws of shmita, letting the land lay fallow every seven years and releasing all debts, which gets tied to the cycle of working for six days a week and then taking Shabbat to rest. The litany of laws concludes, for now, with laws about the three pilgrimage festivals of Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot, and a commandment not to cook a kid in its mother’s milk. God then pivots to some instructions about entering the land of Israel, saying the Israelites will be blessed if they observe these laws. The blessings are great: long life, bountiful harvests, happy family life, military success. We end with a quick recap of revelation, reminding us that Moshe got some laws on Mount Sinai and shared them with the Israelites.
As some of you know, this year, 5782, is a shmita year- a rest year- so I want to actually read the short series of verses in which this law first appears. If you’re the tanach-reading type, we’re looking at Exodus 23, starting with verse 9. The Torah says: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor, in order that your ox and your ass may rest, and that your bondman and the stranger may be refreshed.” Though these verses seem to cover distinct subjects: protection for outsiders, agricultural practice, caring for the needy and observing Shabbat, I don’t think it’s an accident that they are grouped together. To me, this short section says, “have empathy for your own need to rest, and for others.” Don’t push anyone harder than you would push yourself, and don’t push yourself harder than you would push your loved ones. Many commentators have noted that this line of thinking was radical at it’s time, and sure, it probably was. But it’s also radical now. How often do we apply inconsistent criteria to rest, perhaps pushing ourselves harder because we feel like we can or should do more, or expecting all deliveries to be made in a day or two just because some companies do deliver items in less than 48 hours?
I imagine it was not easy for early followers of the Torah to heed this guidance for rest, nor is it for us. So I want to offer a blessing for the farmers of the ancient world, who had to take this leap of faith to put down their tools for a day, or a year, and trust that they would still be fine. And I want to offer a blessing to each of you, that you also have the opportunity to rest, regularly, even when and if you don’t think you “need” it, and trust that you will be ok.