Mishpatim: Law and Order

Mishpatim: Law and Order

Every year, reading Mishpatim, I am amazed by the arrangement.  ( Paragraphs are according to the text) 

It starts with  laws of the indentured servant: his term of service, his relationship to his family, extending his term of service with a pierced ear.

It moves on to the crueler and more desperate situation of the man who sells his daughter into servitude.  There is an implication that the servitude will end in marriage, and the hint that this marriage will not be the most honored of unions. 

Then there is a distinction between capital homicide and manslaughter. 

Striking a parent is punishable by death. 

Kidnapping is a capital offence

Cursing a parent brings the death sentence

A non lethal wound is a tort,  not a felony.

The juxtapositions are jarring.  There is no let up, as the parsha proceeds through various misdeeds, crimes, damages, misdemeanors.  It reads like class notes, items written as fast as possible, priority dictated by a combination of poignancy, universality, counter-intuitiveness, probability of appearance on the final exam.  The name of the parsha, Mishpatim, takes on a double meaning: laws and sentences.  Are these sentences that have not been ordered? 

No, there are lessons in the juxtapositions.  Servitude, death, parents: these are themes that can swim together.  On the High Holidays we ask Gd if we are being viewed as children or as servants as was beg for our lives and ask forgiveness for our mortal sins.  The idea of liberation, by any means, including killing, is embedded in servitude. A slave is a kidnapped person. The Master may imagine himself in loco parentis, but that is not reality. ...

There is method..