The name of the Sidra means LAWS. We shall also read, today, for the Maftir, a small section from the beginning of the Sidra of KI TISSA, which is called Parashat Shekalim. This is always read on the Shabbat which precedes the New Moon of Adar and it is the first of four special portions which we read before Purim and Pesach.
Mishpatim contains a vast number of social rules, moral imperatives, ethical injunctions and civil and criminal laws. All of them are linked to the Ten Commandments which we read last Shabbat. Rashi points out that this is why this Sidra begins with the letter VAV which means ‘and’.
Echoing the order of the 10 Commandments, the parasha begins with ten laws that regulate the institution of slavery. The first commandment is: “I am the Lord your God took you out of the land of Egypt, the home of slavery.” Therefore, in this Sidra we are commanded to treat our slaves with the greatest of care and consideration. The first law deals with the Hebrew slave. The Talmud explains that a Hebrew, namely an Israelite, became degraded to this lowly status if he stole and was not able to pay for the theft. When convicted, he was sold by the court in order to enable him to pay restitution from the money that was paid for his purchase. Also, an Israelite person was entitled to sell himself as a slave if he fell onto hard times and could not pay his way. He was allowed to sell himself only for six years. After six years he had to be released and the owner was commanded to give him a special grant in order to enable him set himself up as a free person. At the end of six years, a Hebrew slave had the right to ask for an extension and remain in his master’s service. Often the incentive to stay was because his family had grown whilst he was slave; in a situation where he had been given a wife by his owner. Despite the fact that he felt the urgency to stay as a slave, our rabbis regarded this desire as a sin because slavery was considered fundamentally inhumane.
Accordingly, they explained that the slave had to have his ear pierced because he had failed to listen properly to the first Commandment. This states clearly that the Israelites had been liberated from Egypt in order that they should be free to be servants only in the service of God himself. Our rabbis put it in this way: “The ear that heard at Sinai that we are God’s servants, should not want to be a servant to a servant and now serve that servant forever.” The Hebrew slave had to be freed, finally, in the Jubilee year, i.e. the 50th year.
The second law in the Sidra deals with a father who was forced, due to poverty, to sell his daughter as a maidservant. The Torah legislates that the purchaser was obliged either to marry her later, when she reached the appropriate age; or, alternatively, give her, as a wife, to his son. If he found that he was unable to marry her or to ask his son to do so, he was obliged to free her without any expectation of payment. He was not allowed to sell her on to someone else. In this passage we also find very important legislation with regard to the obligations of a husband towards his wife in every marriage. There are three principal obligations: A husband has to provide his wife with food, clothes and happiness through physical relationship. These obligations are stated clearly in the Ketubah, which we read under the Chuppah.
The next five laws deal with the laws of murder, striking parents, kidnapping and cursing parents. These five laws carry the death penalty. Just as the first law in the Sidra corresponds to the first law in the 10 Commandments, so this section begins with the first law in the second section of the 10 Commandments, which is ‘DO NOT MURDER’. The Torah establishes the principle of the sanctity of life and the punitive principle of measure for measure. Everybody’s life is sacred including the life of a killer. That is why if a person kills by mistake his life has to be protected. The Torah promises to provide special places for such protection. In contrast, in ancient times, it was a widespread practice not to punish the murderer who managed to escape into a sanctuary. This untenable practice was also followed in Israel and this is why the Torah emphasised that it should be abolished completely.
The Torah goes on to state that if a person inflicts a non-fatal injury upon another person, he must pay full compensation which is computed in this way: The striker has to pay damages for five things — injury, pain, insult, expenses and loss of earning.
In the next section of the Sidra we learn about the treatment of slaves. The Torah protects slaves from being mistreated by their owners. If an owner strikes his slave so hard that he causes his death, he is punished like any other murderer. This is one great example of the progress in legislation Torah i.e. that slaves are also to be treated like human beings. Amongst other nations, slaves were regarded as the property of their owners. Therefore, if their owners killed them, they were not punished. In this law, as in many others, the Torah was ahead of its time, by thousands of years.