Finding G-d in the Messiness of it all

The content of yesterdays Torah portion is kind of startling. Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing shocking about a series of laws forming the groundwork for detailed legislation, laws that will serve as the bedrock of a fair and equitable society — one that protects its weakest segment, metes out fair and balanced justice when required, basically establishing governing paradigms that protect mankind from veering toward narcissism. In fact we expect nothing less. What’s striking here is the context. This blueprint of good living, designed to curb our worst instincts, follows the experience of Sinai, an epiphanic moment in history, where the society in question had managed to thoroughly transcend, (albeit temporarily) those very instincts!

The truth is that there is an intentionality in presenting the starkness of this paradox.

Had the Torah slowly transitioned from the euphoria of Sinai, to outlining the MISHPATIM, it’s prosaic- centric constitution”, pausing, as though to drive him it’s asymmetry, then it would have only reinforced the conventional sense of a wide gulf that separates our base lower instincts from our more noble and sublime side.

This way the message is clear. The laws of Mishpatim do not follow the silencing of the Sinai voice, to the contrary, the laws that govern life in the “lower worlds” are the very channels through which that voice D remains audible, when the G-d ideas resonate in the complexities of human awareness, registering fully in its fiber, when we are hearing that voice existentially, with our “human ears” — then WE ARE its continuity.

Much Love

Rabbi Yossi