There is a debate where parshat Mishpatim fits in chronologically, was it before Matan Torah or after?
The first opinion, Rashi, says that when you have the Vav ha’Chibur (a connecting letter “vav), it comes to add to something mentioned before it. Since the parsha begins “Ve’eileh HaMishpatim,” with the Vav ha’Chibur, it means that parshat Mishpatim is a continuation of the parsha before it – Matan Torah. Just as the Ten Commandments were given on Har Sinai, so too were the Mishpatim given on Har Sinai.
The other opinion, R’ Yehuda in the Mechilta, says that these Mishpatim (Dinim) were already given to Am Yisrael at Mara, straight after the Splitting of the Red Sea, before Matan Torah and they were repeated again at Matan Torah.
In this shiur we will be exploring the second opinion, that the Mishpatim were first given at Mara.
Let us backtrack a little to parshat Beshalach, to recall the story of Mara. Am Yisrael had just experienced the greatest epiphany possible at the Red Sea. After the Egyptians had been swallowed by the sea, HaKadosh Baruch Hu commanded the sea to “spit them out” onto the shore. In addition to the dead Egyptians, all the loot that they brought with them from Egypt also washed up on shore. After the Ten Plagues, Pharaoh was finding it difficult to convince his army to pursue Am Yisrael into the desert, so he bribed them. He gave the soldiers free access to the treasuries of Egypt allowing them to load up as much loot as their chariots could carry.
In addition to all the riches that each member of Am Yisrael carried out of Egypt on 90 Libyan donkeys, Am Yisrael started adding another layer of loot on the donkeys from the spoils from the Red Sea.
The purpose of all this material wealth was to develop a lust for money within Am Yisrael, which they would later redirect into a lust to study Torah.
When HaKadosh Baruch Hu saw that the “mechanism” was working well, so well in fact that Moshe had to forcibly get them to leave the Red Sea, He said “OK, now’s the time to try it out!” When they arrived at Mara soon after, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave them a small “preview” of the Torah that they would soon receive on Har Sinai, a little “appetizer,” to give them a taste for the “main course.” What was this “appetizer?” The Gemara (Sanhedrin 56b) says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave them Dinim, the halachot of Shabbat and the red heifer. Which Dinim? According to R’ Yehuda above – the same Dinim mentioned in parshat Mishpatim.
Have any of you seen a movie preview? The short excerpt the producers send to all the media channels to advertise the movie before it hits the movie theaters? What is the purpose of a “preview?” To arouse the appetite so that you want to see more of the same thing, right? You take snippets of the best of the best, the cream of the crop and you dangle it like a carrot. “Want more? Soon in a theater near you!”
What was the appetizer, the tantalizing first snippet that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave Am Yisrael of the Torah? The laws of a Jewish slave!
There are two circumstances when a Jew can be sold as a slave. The first is when he has no money to survive, to buy food to eat. He can sell himself as a slave – to work in return for board and lodging. The second circumstance is when a Jew steals from another Jew and he does not have to pay back what he stole (plus the required fine), he is sold as a slave, either to the person he stole from, or to someone else (who will pay the debt in his stead). The case in the beginning of our parsha is the second case, the case of a thief.
This is the “carrot” that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to entice Am Yisrael to crave more Torah with? Not only is it a subject that most people want to run a mile from (who wants to discuss thieves and theft?), but these laws are not applicable immediately in the Midbar. The laws of a Jewish slave will only become applicable when Am Yisrael enter Eretz Yisrael and not immediately after, but at least one Yovel (50 years) after they have entered the land.
How does that stir the appetite? We can understand Shabbat and the red heifer – these are at least inspiring and applicable already in the Midbar. But the first introduction to the Torah is – talking about a thief? What is going on here?
To understand this, we need to understand what Matan Torah was. It was a reset of the world to the state of Creation before Adam and Chava sinned with the Tree of Knowledge.
For 2,448 years the world had been in a state of disconnect from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. At the time of Creation, HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s Shechina (Presence) dwelled in this world. After Adam and Chava sinned, HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s Shechina departed one level up (in the seven levels of Heaven). Following that, the sins of Kayin, the generations of Enosh, the Flood, Dor HaPalaga, Sodom and Egypt, the Shechina departed further and further from earth, one level at a time (Bereishit Raba 19:7), until Avraham went down to Egypt – when the Shechina was the furthest it could possibly be from earth. The Avot, Levi, Kehat and Amram managed to bring the Shechina back – one level at a time, until Moshe and Am Yisrael at Matan Torah, managed to restore the Shechina back to the final level on earth.
By eating from the forbidden tree, Adam HaRishon was stealing something that did not belong to him. Adam HaRishon, therefore, was the first thief!
HaKadosh Baruch Hu is about to give the Torah to Am Yisrael. This will repair the sin of Adam HaRishon and reset the world. What is the preview that HaKadosh Baruch Hu therefore gives Am Yisrael of the Torah? The laws of a Jewish slave – the tikkun for Adam HaRishon, the first thief.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: How do we know that reparations for making someone blind are monetary?
Answer to Last Shiur’s Trivia Question: Why did Yitro not remain with Bnei Yisrael in the desert? He returned to Midyan to convert the rest of his family and he later returned and rejoined Bnei Yisrael (Rashi). His descendants inherited the city of Jericho.