Mishpatim: Empathy
Mishpatim opens, in media res, with laws pertaining to how one must keep and treat one’s servants. It is a curious thing to begin with, given the previous parashiot’s overarching emphasis on the theme of freedom. Here, rather than completely abolish slavery, the Torah sets up detailed and rigid parameters to ensure the rights and safety of servants, altering the contemporary societal framework enough so that it can tolerably exist in the time before it can be abolished. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks notes, ‘slavery, the bitter experience of the Israelites in Egypt, could not be abolished overnight’, only institutionally being eliminated in the ‘United States [in] the 1860s [the idea causing] a devastating civil war’.[1] Instead of attempting to immediately transform society completely, through His laws in Mishpatim G-d begins paving the long road to widespread freedom, a road we have still not reached the end of, even today.
The Torah gives the imperative כי תקנה עבד עברי שש שנים יעבד ובשבעת יצא לחפשי חנם, ‘If you buy a Hebrew servant, he will serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing’ (Ex. 21:2), alongside the warning וכי-יכה איש את-עבדו או את-אמתו בשבט ומת תחת ידו נקם ינקם, ‘if a man smites his servant or his maid with a rod, and [they die] under his hand, he shall surely be punished’ (Ex. 21:20). A separate set of laws also ensures that, for one day in seven, servants or slaves as well as others were able to breathe the air of freedom and autonomy (Ex. 23:12). These statements on different laws give specific details about the relationships between the people who constitute master and servant, ensuring the latter dignity and the certainty of their freedom at the end of an allotted work period, independent of the wishes of the former. They are embedded in a wider set of laws laying out various scenarios between people, like business arrangements and interpersonal disagreements, and which actions and crimes in these scenarios should face retribution. What is so stark about each statement is that they are anchored in humanity and empathy for the other, the parasha going so far as to state quite plainly וגר לא תלחץ ואתם ידעתם את-נפש הגר כי-גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים, ‘And you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt’ (Ex. 23:9).
Sandwiched between commands about bribes and working the land, this statement might appear isolated at first, untethered. The Torah, however, carefully and specifically ties this moral imperative to be empathetic of others to the experience of slavery and otherness within the Israelite’s own narrative of existence by referencing their foreignness in Egypt, cementing the Torah’s formation as a book both of narrative and law. Rabbi Sacks writes on this, commenting that ‘the remarkable project of Torah’ is ‘to translate historical experience into detailed legislation, so that the Israelites would live what they had learned on a daily basis’.[2] Mishpatim’s legal injunction to treat the unknown other kindly is rooted in the previous experiences of otherness and slavery, the Torah providing not just the law but the reasoning behind it, recording both the narrative and its legal derivative within the same text. The Israelites experienced cruel bondage, so they are bound to treat their own servants and workers with the respect and humanity which they did not experience in Egypt. The Israelites were also strangers, foreigners in Egypt, so they are told to ensure that others are not made to feel the way that they did. It is a powerful concept, to be aware of the experiences which provided impetus for a law or a philosophical way of life, and here it is demonstrated perfectly.
Within these interpersonal laws Mishpatim provides a blueprint by which we can imbue our collective and individual lives with deeper meaning. As Robert M. Cover proposed in his essay ‘Nomos and Narrative’, the remembrance of past experiences in creating and implementing a legal framework allows us to ‘create the normative worlds in which law is predominantly a system of meaning rather than an imposition of force’.[3] Acknowledging one’s own emotional experience as the reason behind an act, legal or personal, gives it greater significance and purpose, providing a why behind the action. In Mishpatim, the Torah explores this idea by offering the first instance in which law is presented next to narrative. By framing the laws around servitude within the wider context of the Jewish people’s own experience of slavery and othering, the Torah ensures that ‘the way [in which the] nation sought to live its collective life […] never [forgot] the lessons it learned along the way’, infusing their future actions and interactions with others in their previous position with empathy and understanding.[4]
Such a philosophy of kindness and interpersonal compassion can be emulated, not just in the laws of a land or a nation, but in the self-imposed ‘laws’ or philosophies we hold central in our own lives. Each of us is likely to experience some form of feeling excluded or othered, whether as social minorities or in group or social dynamics; we will also experience sadness or pain during our lives. It is recalling these personal experiences in our interactions with others that allow us to be empathetic. This very week, as the remaining hostages’ time in captivity exceed 500 days, and the first bodies of those murdered in captivity are returned to Israel, many are drenched with great renewed grief and sadness for those they have never met, those would be strangers that the Torah describes. Many broken hearts make up a singular broken heart, the pain of individual families felt by an entire nation and beyond. We are called on to be empathetic, and this empathy is only possible because of awareness of the past, of individual and collective experiences of grief, loss, tragedy and fear, and of the experience, direct or indirect, of October 7th. Though they are painful, these moments will remind us of our moral frameworks and of our empathy, of what we owe to one another as human beings. They show us what we must implement in our personal and communal lives, in our interactions and relationships, to ensure that others do not live what we are living now. Mishpatim demonstrates how we can enact empathy, and it is something that we must remember, now more than ever.
For Ariel and Kfir Bibas, Oded Lifshitz, and their families.
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[1] Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Lessons in Leadership, (2015), pg.90-91
[2] Rabbi Sacks, pg.90
[3] Robert M. Cover, ‘Nomos and Narrative’ in Harvard Law Review: The Supreme Court 1982 Term, Vol.97 No.4, (1983), pp.4-68, pg.12
[4] Rabbi Sacks, pg.92
