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Parshat Mishpatim
2005
My Dog Ate My Baklava
Laws, laws and more laws. And what do the Israelites say? "Sure Moses, you got it. All those laws - we love them!" The Israelites eagerly accepted this litany of laws about slaves, animals, strangers, widows, orphans and so on. And then what happens right after that? "Let us build a golden calf." Did they purposely build this golden calf in order to spite the very words God had just spoken, or was there simply a miscommunication about what these laws actually entailed?
The other morning I woke up to a noise in the kitchen. I tiptoed down the stairs and lo and behold, what did I see? My dog eating a delicious plate of baklava cooling on the countertop next to the hot oven! Our dog is not allowed in the kitchen. We created a rule that she was not allowed to step onto the linoleum. When we are in the kitchen, she waits on the other side of the invisible line for a rub behind the ear or to play ball. The "no kitchen" law is obeyed. However, when the lawmaker was not in the kitchen, the law seemed to disappear as well (according to the dog). Needless to say, the dog was relegated to the laundry room, and a new batch of baklava was created at 5 a.m.
The opening lines of this week's Torah portion, Mishpatim, begin, "These are the laws that you shall set before them." Laws not only help protect us from certain dangers, but they also help draw us closer to God and help to define a just society. However, what happens when those laws are not understood? How does the law-giver explain the laws, and how do the law-abiders understand the laws?
My dog, a smart black lab, did not receive all the information regarding the law of the kitchen. She was not to enter the kitchen when humans were in there. That is what she understood. There were no physical reminders that she was not allowed in, so how was she to completely comprehend the entirety of the rule? Now we have a broom that sits across the kitchen entranceway that reminds her that the kitchen is not the place for dogs. There are things that are dangerous - a hot stove, chocolate and glass. She sees the broom and is reminded that that is not her place. She turns away and heads down to the laundry room for her Kibbles and Bits.
Similarly, the Israelites had just been given a long list of laws to follow but had not yet had the knowledge to grasp what they were each really about. In Judaism today, we have physical reminders that also help us remember and observe these laws - the mezuzah, tallit, tefillin, kippah, the Torah scroll, a synagogue. We are reminded each day that these laws are more than written words. They help to form a code of conduct for society. Seeing from the golden calf experience, a list of laws are only beneficial when they are understood to be significant in the lives of the people for whom the laws are made. There need to be reminders along the way that shout out, "Look, this law is here because there are significant and important reasons to have it." When people understand the laws and commit to observe them because they know the reasoning behind them, only then do the laws become a useful and significant tool for decision makers.
Let us take these laws that we are given in Mishpatim, and throughout the Torah, and find ways to understand them in the context of our own lives. Then they are transformed from a litany of laws to be followed into a part of the continuing story of the Jewish people.
Prepared by Bethany Friedlander, program director, University of Pennsylvania Hillel
Learn More
Additional commentaries and text studies on Parshat Mishpatim at MyJewishLearning.com.
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