At each beginning, there is an opportunity for renewal and improvement. Here we are, at the start of a new semester and a new year that is brimming with promise. When looking to make our New Years’ Resolutions, our first thought is probably not to turn to the Torah, but why not? Although this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, will most likely not be helpful to any of us in the ox goring moral dilemma department, it is chock full of important and relevant laws (as the name Mishpatim suggests!).
The parsha can be broken down into three major categories of laws. The first, laws on serfdom and injuries, deals with freeing slaves after the seventh year (but only male slaves, of course), various reasons for capital punishment, and other retribution for injuries, including injury inflicted by animals. In this section, the similarities between the Torah and our favorite sixth-grade-history-class set of laws, Hammurabi’s Code, are too great to ignore. In 21:24-25, we are taught “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise,” but allowed to understand that this meant monetary retribution. Also, Hammurabi deals with ox goring, but I am proud to report that the Torah considers many more possible scenarios, giving the benefit of the doubt to an owner with a first-time goring ox but coming down hard on an owner who has been warned of his ox’s goring habits.
Another section tells the story of Moses ascending the mountain for forty days and forty nights. We hear the thrice-repeated law that it is forbidden to boil a kid in his mother’s milk, we learn about how to observe the Shalosh Regalim, and there is instruction to violently destroy the altars and pillars of neighboring tribes.
The last section I will discuss, laws on property and moral behavior, deals with borrowing, stealing, committing bestiality, seducing virgins, and the treatment of orphans and widows and strangers. And here we come to the resolution portion of this week’s portion! “You must not carry false rumors; you shall not join hands with the guilty to act as a malicious witness. You shall neither side with the majority to do wrong” (23:1-2). Rashi interprets this to mean that we should not blindly follow a majority if our conscience demands otherwise, and we must not trust a majority without question.
At the start of second semester, a large portion of students here are joining Greek life and getting more involved in their activities. Regardless of the specific nature of these activities, it is always important to remember these words of Torah. Rumors are bad, and even witnessing evil, without correcting it, is evil itself. The will of any group should never come before the will of our own instincts, beliefs, and conscience. Not only is this vital to our own sense of morality, it is also vital to our sense of originality—something that is sometimes more comfortable to put on the back burner at college.
In the coming week, semester, or year, consider making this your resolution. Do not spread false rumors and act by your own conscience. The world will be a little bit brighter!
Shabbat Shalom,
Jordana Gilman
Your 2011 Chair of Jewish Education and Culture!
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