Should Rabbis get involved in financial matters within a community? Isn't a rabbi better off dealing with strictly "spiritual and religious" subjects? This week's Torah portion - Parashat Mishpatim - challenges the simplistic thinking that limits the definition of "religious and spiritual" to ritual laws and prayers.
“And these are the rules (Mishpatim) that you shall set before them.” With this opening verse from Parashat Mishpatim, God begins to legislate the detailed version of the Torah’s system of civil legislation. The word Mishpatim refers to civil laws and ordinances, and by making these laws the first set of legislation following the Aseret Hadibrot (Ten Commandments or Utterances) at Mount Sinai, God sends a very powerful message about how the Jewish people should go about building a truly “religious community.”
Most people looking to create a “religious community” would begin by building a house of worship. In the Torah, God sees things differently. As the Jewish people are in the initial stages of building their own religious community, civil laws governing relationships between people (Bein Adam L’Havero) are legislated before the laws on building the Mishkan (Tabernacle). Batei Din (civil courts) come before the Mishkan, and Dayanim (judges) precede Kohanim (Priests).
Parashat Mishpatim deals in matters that don’t seem “religious or spiritual” to most people -- personal injury, damages due to negligence, paying employees on time, borrowing items or lending money, to name just a few – but these actually form the core of how the Torah envisions the definition and governance of a Jewish religious society. The Torah recognizes and understands human nature - that it’s much easier to behave “religiously” within the comfortable confines of a synagogue. The true challenge is maintaining that religiosity beyond the confines of a “religious house of worship.”
So it was, in the 17th Century in Damascus, when a brilliant young rabbi named Samuel Vital (son of the famous Kabbalist Rabbi Haim Vital) was challenged with a financial issue in his community.
There was a custom in Damascus that for the purposes of tax assessment, the properties of the wealthy were evaluated up to 3000 grushim (the currency at that time), thereby creating a situation that any properties or financial holdings above 3000 grushim were tax exempt. In modern terms: a tax ceiling.
The rationale behind this was the fear that if they collected taxes on the wealthy beyond this amount, then the wealthy would hide their properties and financial holdings. This was the accepted system for many years.
It came a time that there were less wealthy families in the community, and the tax burden became greater – on the state, on the middle class and on the poor – and there remained only 3-4 affluent families. The middle class and poor (who were the majority of the residents) requested to annul the tax ceiling, favoring instead that the wealthy should pay taxes on all of their holdings. The wealthy responded by saying that this was the custom of the community for many years, and that they had no intention of making any such changes, and that “if the community became poorer, that’s their tough luck, but they should not bear the burden.”
Rav Vital contemplated whether to get involved in this situation:
“Why should I get involved? Does it not say in Pirkei Avot that he who shuns the office of judge rids himself of enmity, theft, and false swearing? If I do remove myself from this situation, then the community will be destroyed through disputes that nobody will be able to prevent. On the other hand, if I speak up, I will acquire for myself enemies. But - in the spirit of representing the truth, which I am supposed to do as a rabbi - if I do speak out on the truth, even if it won’t please those who will be bound to a new ruling, I will ultimately be upholding the honor of the rabbinic position, for we – as rabbis – are emissaries of God, and I will prevent the impression that the law is being inflexibly upheld simply for the sake of upholding the law and favoring the wealthy, without any accounting for mercy towards the needy."
Rabbi Vital initially concluded that the original custom should be upheld and cannot be changed unless the entire community – including the wealthy – agree together to change it. This, he says, is the “principal of the halakha.” But...
“However,” he said, "that applies and is nice when we are speaking about a 'custom' who, from its very beginnings, was a proper custom. But when we are speaking about a custom that, from its very origins, was designed in a way to create financial losses upon the poor and downtrodden, would such a custom find favor in God’s eyes? Would God view favorably a custom that takes a middle class person who has only 100 grushim in savings, and from that he must sustain his family plus also pay taxes on the entire amount of his holdings, while a wealthy person, blessed by God with 10,000 grushim from which he eats, holds lavish parties and continues to amass savings, yet only pays on 3000 grushim, and is exempt from paying on the rest? The rich get richer, while the poor continue in the path of poverty? This is the trait of Sodom!"
Rabbi Vital's courage to speak out in the name of halakhic truth is an example for all generations of rabbis and leaders. It's not always popular to speak the truth, especially when that truth becomes an "inconvenient truth" for those who are accustomed to violate the law.
Rabbi Vital, and Parashat Mishpatim, remind us that "Spirituality and Religiosity" begin by following civil law - in the street, in the workplace and in business. It was precisely the violation of those laws that - in the spirit of Rabbi Vital's words - the prophet Isaiah referred to the residents of Jerusalem as 'Officers of Sodom" (Isaiah 1:10) just before the destruction of Jerusalem. Our communities do not ever want to be associated with immoral practices that reduce us to the selfish ways of Sodom. We know where that led.
Parashat Mishpatim does not deal with prayer or rituals, but it is arguably the Torah's greatest statement on spirituality and religiosity, beautifully captured by one teaching in Pirkei Avot:
The world is sustained through three elements: Din (law), Emet (truth) and Shalom (peace).
If we want peace in our communities, we must be willing to uphold the law and speak the truth - even when it's inconvenient to do so.
Shabbat Shalom