Justice and Tzedakah
From time to time, I like to take a step back from the weekly Torah portion and think about the broader sequence of events – how does the sequence of parshiyyot lead us to a deeper understanding of the values of Torah?
The placement of this week’s Torah portion, in particular, is hard to understand. Overall, the sequence of the Book of Exodus goes like this: slavery and liberation from Egypt, the covenant at Sinai, and the construction of a Holy Space, the Mishkan. That much makes logical sense: God frees us from bondage, we join God in covenant, and we construct a Mishkan, a holy dwelling for God. The puzzle is that, right in between the covenant and the Mishkan, we have parashat Mishpatim: fifty-three commandments about mundane, every-day matters like theft, rental property, personal injury, and the needs of the poor, widows, orphans, and strangers. Why are these mitzvot inserted here, apparently interrupting between the covenant and the construction of the Mishkan, rather than appearing later in the Torah after God’s sanctuary is in place?
The placement of this week’s Torah portion, in particular, is hard to understand. Overall, the sequence of the Book of Exodus goes like this: slavery and liberation from Egypt, the covenant at Sinai, and the construction of a Holy Space, the Mishkan. That much makes logical sense: God frees us from bondage, we join God in covenant, and we construct a Mishkan, a holy dwelling for God. The puzzle is that, right in between the covenant and the Mishkan, we have parashat Mishpatim: fifty-three commandments about mundane, every-day matters like theft, rental property, personal injury, and the needs of the poor, widows, orphans, and strangers. Why are these mitzvot inserted here, apparently interrupting between the covenant and the construction of the Mishkan, rather than appearing later in the Torah after God’s sanctuary is in place?
Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (Belarus, 1820-1892), great-grandfather of the famous American Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, points us in the direction of an answer. He writes that parashat Mishpatim, with its laws of social justice, comes before the building of the Mishkan in order to teach us that before we give tzedakah, we must first make sure that our money is not tainted by ill-gotten gains.
Put differently, the means do not justify the ends. Even as the Torah presents the Mishkan as God’s dwelling place on earth, the Divine Palace, the placement of this week’s Torah portion between the covenant and the Mishkan reminds us that justice must always come first; a physical structure for the community – be it a Mishkan, a Temple, or a synagogue – might help remind us of God’s Glory, but the mitzvot in this weeks’ parshah, the mitzvot of social justice, are the prerequisite for any honor we might offer to God.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman
