Mishpatim 5775

What the Death Penalty Teaches Us about a Society

Abraham Joshua Heschel once said that: a society is measured by the way it treats its elderly.   In watching the news this week I came to the conclusion that we can learn a great deal about a society by the way they administer the death penalty. The world had a terrible example of this in the past few days.  ISIS put a Jordanian pilot to death in such a grossly barbaric way that the world cannot pretend there is anything civilized or redeeming in this new Caliphate. Then, yesterday we heard the news that Kayla Mueller, an American aide worker, was put to death despite the pleading of her parents; despite the fact she was not an armed combatant, nor that her sole purpose for being in Syria was to help the innocent.

We can measure a society by the way it values human life—in the manner in which it administers the death penalty.

This week we read Parshat Mishpatim. It contains one of our people’s most ancient law codes. We learn that if one knowingly takes a life they must forfeit their own. Such is the holiness of every person created in the image of God. Even if the perpetrator claims sanctuary they must be removed from the very alter itself so that justice may be done. However, if the murder was unintentional then the Torah makes provisions to have a person live in a city of refuge where they would be safe from the vengeance of the family members of the slain person. While the Torah allows for capital punishment it also takes care to ensure that great care be exercised to ensure that the State not abuse such power. The Rabbis themselves adopted this attitude. It is recorded in the Mishnah: Makkot 1:10 that “A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called a murderous one.” This attitude regarding the sanctity of life has been carried on by the modern State of Israel, which does not allow for Capital Punishment. In fact, the only recorded case of a person put to death was that of Adolph Eichmann whose Crime against the Jewish People could be punished no other way.

The distinctiveness of our tradition can be seen in the last few sentences of this section on capital crimes. It is a familiar phrase: the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. It is of interest to us that the Code of Hammurabi, one in existence since during the time of Abraham, contains almost the exact same wording. The difference is that in Mishpatim these laws were administered to everyone equally and, in the Code of Hammurabi, based upon ones class in society. Furthermore, in our tradition it is understood from the start that the Torah was not advocating the simple meaning of the text, but rather monetary compensation. For our people the punishment must always fit the crime. 

To use the death penalty as an opportunity to publicize one’s cause, as ISIS does, is an affront to the very God they purport to worship and honor. Now that the world has had the opportunity to peer into the dark soul of these people, we can only pray that they will be dealt with in a way that is commensurate with their crimes. 

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Michael Siegel

Mishpatim 5774

Mishpatim 5774

In late 19th century German a school of Biblical scholarship developed which, among other things, was determined to prove that the “Old Testament” (what we call the “Tanakh”) was not much more than a barbaric and archaic collection of meaningless laws.  Among the favorite targets was the case of the goring ox described in this week’s parasha, Mishpatim, where we learn:

When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished. 29If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed to guard it, and it kills a man or a woman—the ox shall be stoned and its owner, too, shall be put to death.                

Shemot (Exodus) 21

The German scholars compared this text with the teachings found, for example, in the Code of Hammurabi which teaches:

If an ox gored a man to death while walking along the street, the case is not subject to claim.  If a man’s ox was known as a gorer but he neither padded the horns nor tied the ox and the ox gored a member of the aristocracy to death, the owner shall pay one half mina of silver.

The scholars claimed the Torah’s insistence on capital punishment instead of financial compensation (as in the Code of Hammurabi) was proof that the Old Testament was even less civilized than the laws of the pagan ancient near east.

However, one of the great teachers of the Conservative Movement, Professor Moshe Greenberg, of blessed memory, former chair of the Bible department at Hebrew University, took up the challenge of these anti-Semitic scholars decades after they lived by completing the comparison they had left unfinished.  True, he noted that Biblical Judaism insisted on the death of the owner of the goring ox who had allowed the ox to kill a human being though forewarned which Hammurabi did not do.  However, he noted that Hammurabi did insist on capital punishment in the following instances:

If a man makes a breach in a house, they shall put him to death in front of the breach and wall him in.  If a man commits robbery and is caught, that man shall be put to death.

In contrast the Torah teaches (again in our parasha):

If the thief is seized while tunneling……….He must make restitution; if he lacks the means, he shall be sold for his theft. 3But if what he stole—whether ox or ass or sheep—is found alive in his possession, he shall pay double.

In other words Hammurabi calls for capital punishment when objects are stolen but not when lives are taken.  The Torah allows for financial compensation when objects have been stolen but not when lives have been lost unnecessarily.  This may not satisfy all of us who oppose capital punishment but on the continuum of humane values Professor Greenberg demonstrated that at the core of the Torah’s teachings nothing is more sacred than the life of a human being.

What a great lesson to keep in mind the Shabbat following our country’s observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Matt Futterman
Senior Educator

Mishpatim 5773

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?

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