From Mount Sinai to Everyday Justice: The Moral Vision of Parashat Mishpatim

“And these are the laws that you shall place before them. When you acquire a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go free without payment… One who strikes a person and he dies shall surely be put to death… An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth… If an ox gores… If a person opens a pit… When a person gives money or vessels to another for safekeeping… You shall be holy people to Me… You shall not follow the majority to do evil, nor shall you respond in a dispute by inclining after the majority to pervert justice… Keep far from falsehood… Three pilgrimage festivals you shall celebrate for Me each year… You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk… And he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the ears of the people, and they said: All that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will hear.”

Parashat Mishpatim After Sinai

Parashat Mishpatim follows immediately after the revelation at Mount Sinai and serves as its continuation. As Rashi explains: “‘And this adds to what came before. Just as the earlier commandments were given at Sinai, so too these were given at Sinai.”

The portion contains more than fifty commandments and a wide array of legal subjects: laws of servants, damages and the four primary categories of torts, theft and robbery, guardianship, loans, prohibited foods, the sabbatical year, and more. These “laws” are meant for everyday life, primarily governing relationships between people, related to earthly, commercial, and even criminal matters.

At first glance, this transition can feel anticlimactic. From the awe-inspiring spiritual heights of Sinai, experienced in unity and trembling at the foot of the mountain, we seem to descend into the fine print of mundane life of regulations, lawsuits, and legal disputes. How do these details belong next to such a transcendent event?

Three Human Archetypes: Knowledge, Religion, and Halachah

In Halachic Man: Revealed and Hidden, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik describes the ideal figure of “halachic man” by contrasting him with two other archetypes: the man of knowledge and the man of religion.

The man of knowledge contemplates the universe from a distance. He seeks understanding, explanation, and intellectual clarity. He is a theorist, concerned with ontology and the structure of existence, striving above all to know.

The man of religion, by contrast, seeks pure spirituality. He emphasizes mystery, transcendence, and escape from concrete reality into the divine realm. He longs to leave the material world behind and enter a higher, sanctified domain.

The halachic man includes elements of both, yet differs fundamentally from each. His goal is not to redeem the world by escaping it, but to redeem it from within, by shaping concrete reality according to the ideals of halachah. As Rabbi Soloveitchik writes, the religious man opens in this world and closes in the transcendent, while halachic man opens in the transcendent and closes in this world.

Bringing Heaven Down to Earth

This perspective clarifies the rapid shift from Sinai to Mishpatim. The Torah’s intent is to unite theory and practice, spirit and matter, transcendence and immanence. The ideals revealed at Sinai are intended to be realized specifically within the everyday realities of human life.

True spirituality is not found only in exalted moments, but in courts of law, financial dealings, and interpersonal ethics. Lofty ideas that are not translated into action remain abstract. Only through concrete deeds do ideals take on life.

This is why halachah insists that saving a life overrides almost all commandments. “You shall live by them, not die by them.” The Torah’s purpose is life in this world that is sanctified, ethical, and humane.

From Slavery to Human Dignity

After the thunder and fire of Sinai, Parashat Mishpatim opens with the rights of servants. Centuries before the abolition of slavery in the modern world, a nation of former slaves accepts upon itself principles that protect the dignity, equality, and humanity of servants.

This is no small demand. History shows that when the oppressed become powerful, the temptation to dominate and retaliate is strong. Yet Israel is commanded not to replicate the cruelty it once endured.

The same ethic appears in the commandment: “When you see the donkey of your enemy collapsing under its burden, you shall surely help him.” This is not passive tolerance, but active assistance, even toward one you resent. It is a demanding moral stance, distinct from simplistic ideals of passive forgiveness.

Justice in the Eichmann Trial

A powerful modern example of this ethic appeared in the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann. Beyond its national and psychological importance, the trial became a model of justice, despite the unimaginable crimes of the defendant.

At the opening of the proceedings, the prosecutor, Attorney General Gideon Hausner, declared that he spoke not alone, but on behalf of six million murdered Jews whose voices could no longer be heard.

Sitting beside him was his assistant, Michael Goldman, a senior police officer who led Eichmann’s interrogations. Only later did it become known that Goldman himself was a Holocaust survivor.

From Victim to Moral Agent

Goldman was born in 1925 and survived Auschwitz, forced marches, and brutal abuse. His parents and sister were murdered. He escaped, joined the Red Army, fought the Nazis, and was decorated for bravery.

He embodied Jewish resilience and rebirth. Yet more than that, he exemplified the ethical demand of Parashat Mishpatim: the refusal to lose one’s moral image, even after suffering at the hands of evil.

“They Are Not Us”

In his memoir By Fire and by Water, Goldman recounts an incident during his service in the Soviet army. He encountered two small German children crying for their mother, who had fled in fear of the soldiers. He escorted them safely to the city council so they could be reunited.

He later rebuked himself in anger: “Idiot — would they have done this for Jewish children?” But he immediately answered himself: “They are not us. We did not lose the image of God.”

Parashat Mishpatim teaches that the revelation at Sinai finds its truest expression not in mystical escape, but in ethical responsibility. The laws of everyday life — how we judge, lend, help, and restrain ourselves, are where holiness takes root.

To live by these laws is to prove that even after suffering, even after injustice, humanity and compassion can prevail.

Dr. Roi Cohen is a PhD in philosophy from the Hebrew University, an attorney and mediator, and a producer, director, and content creator.