From Revelation to Responsibility: Parashat Mishpatim 5686

This piece was first published in Hanassi Highlights, 12 February 2026. You can also read it in Ivrit, thanks to AI, by clicking here.

After the drama of Ma’amad Har Sinai—the thunder, fire, and overwhelming revelation—Parshat Mishpatim can feel like an anticlimax. We move abruptly from the Ten Commandments to a long and detailed list of civil laws: damages, property, loans, lost objects, and interpersonal disputes. It is hardly the soaring spiritual vision one might expect to follow Sinai.

“Ve’eleh hamishpatim asher tasim lifneihem” — These are the laws you shall place before them. Why does the Torah descend so quickly from revelation to regulation?

The commentators note the Torah’s deliberate use of the connecting vav—ve’eleh hamishpatim. These laws are not a new chapter but a continuation of what happened at Sinai. Revelation was never meant to remain abstract or confined to lofty ideals. It was meant to shape real life.

Rashi sharpens the question even further. Parshat Mishpatim follows immediately after the command to build the mizbe’ach , the altar. Why place detailed civil law next to the symbol of divine worship? What do courts, contracts, and damages have to do with sacrifices and holiness?

The answer emerges from a scene at the end of the parsha—one that Rashi explains actually took place before Sinai (invoking the principle that events in the Torah do not necessarily follow chronological order). As Bnei Yisrael entered into a covenant with Hashem and declared na’aseh venishma, korbanot were brought. Their blood was divided: half sprinkled on the mizbe’ach  and half on the people.

Rashi adds a striking detail: an angel was required to divide the blood precisely in half. Rav Hutner zt”l explains why this mattered. This moment defined the essence of Torah itself. The mizbe’ach  represents bein adam laMakom—our relationship with God. The people represent bein adam laChaveiro—our responsibilities to one another. The blood, the symbol of life, had to be shared equally. Neither dimension outweighs the other. Without both, the covenant is incomplete.

History shows the danger of forgetting this balance. The Mishnah describes how competition among Kohanim in the Beit HaMikdash once degenerated into violence—even murder—at the foot of the mizbe’ach  itself. Religious devotion severed from ethical responsibility can become deeply distorted.

This is why Parshat Mishpatim follows the mizbe’ach . Serving Hashem is not limited to moments of prayer or ritual. It is expressed just as powerfully in how we conduct ourselves at home, at work, and in society. The Torah insists that holiness must permeate our everyday interactions.

Ve’eleh hamishpatim are not a step down from Sinai. Rather, they are its fulfillment: the blueprint for building a holy society and bringing God’s presence into every corner of our lives.

Shabbat Shalom!

From Revelation to Responsibility: Vayigash 5786

This piece was originally published in Hanassi Highlights on 25 December 2025. You can also read it in Hebrew (translated by ChatGPT) here.

From Revelation to Responsibility

This week we mark Asara b’Tevet—the fast commemorating the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. It is the first step in a slow, tightening process that ends in the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. A siege begins quietly, through mounting pressure. But spiritual collapse, the Torah shows us, often begins more quietly still—not with armies, but with fractures in our relationships.

Parshat Vayigash is a study in the opposite movement—not constriction, but revelation; not estrangement, but approach. Yehuda steps forward, speaks directly to power, and takes responsibility for his youngest brother. Yosef steps out from concealment and answers his brothers not with accusation, but with identity restored: “I am Yosef—is my father still alive?” (Bereishit 45:3).

Among the most powerful scenes leading into this moment occurs in last week’s parsha, when Yosef meets Binyamin. The Torah describes Yosef hurrying aside to cry, overwhelmed by compassion (Bereishit 43:30). Rashi, quoting Chazal, explains that these brothers’ tears were not only personal, but prophetic:

·       Yosef cried for the two Batei M
ikdash that would one day stand in Binyamin’s portion and be destroyed.

·       Binyamin cried for Mishkan Shiloh, destined for Yosef’s portion, which would also be destroyed.

The obvious question is why Chazal saw the need to distance Yosef and Binyamin’s tears from this direct encounter into visions of the future? Why not simply say that their tears were due to the long separation they had endured?

Rav Chaim Drukman zt”l explains that Chazal’s intent was not to displace the simple meaning—of course brothers weep when decades of absence collapse into a single embrace. Rather, they were illuminating a deeper question: What created a world in which brothers could be torn apart, and sacred homes could be torn down? What led to the tears? What led to the churban?

The answer goes back to the root of the fracture – when jealousy and hatred between the brothers first begins to emerge:

“lo yachlu dabro le-shalom—they could not speak to him in peace.” (Bereishit 37:4)

The tragedy began not with an invasion, but with a failure of speech, recognition, and responsibility. The sale of Yosef was not merely a family crisis—it was the prototype of a Jewish story that would tragically repeat itself throughout the ages.

The correction occurs in our parsha. Two decades after proposing the sale, Yehuda returns and this time does something entirely different. He becomes a model of arvut—personal responsibility for the welfare of his brother.

Asara b’Tevet reminds us how a siege begins. Vayigash reminds us how a nation heals—through the courage to speak, the willingness to step forward, and the refusal to let a brother face darkness alone.

In days of mounting pressure, we must choose which language to speak: the silence of fracture, or the speech of peace; the logic of distance, or the loyalty of responsibility.

May this week strengthen in us a renewed commitment to clarity, unity, and mutual responsibility, so that the chain of churban that once began in silence will, in our days, end in rebuilding.

Shabbat Shalom!

Shabbat HaGadol -- a lesson in freedom and responsibility

 In addition to Rabbi Wein's regular devar Torah on the parashah (here), we reproduce a piece by Rabbi Wein on the significance of Shabbat HaGadol. Enjoy!

The Shabbat that precedes the holiday of Passover has been named by Jewish tradition as Shabbat Hagadol—the Great Shabbat. Over the ages there have been many explanations as to why this Shabbat is set apart from all others. Rabbinic literature records that it marks the anniversary of the Jewish people’s preparation of the sacrificial lamb for the Passover offering while they were yet in Egypt, awaiting their imminent deliverance. Other reasons for the name have been advanced, all of which have been treasured in Jewish life over the centuries. 

Allow me to introduce another idea that I feel has relevance and importance. Passover represents freedom from bondage, a release from slavery and the creation of myriad possibilities for self-growth and accomplishment. However, human history testifies to the fact that freedom carries with it many responsibilities and dangers. Indeed, there has never been consensus as to what the true definition of freedom is or should be. 

Humans vacillate between uninhibited hedonism and unbridled licentiousness on one hand and tyranny of thought, action and social conformity on the other. Everyone claims to speak in the name of freedom, but we are aware that all ideas of freedom are subject to interpretation and circumstance. For many people freedom of speech only applies to speech that gains their approval. And this is true for all freedoms to which we pay lip service. We find it hard to stomach ideas that do not match our own. 

We therefore need to educate and train ourselves if we are to see that freedom is properly defined and implemented in society—and the training ground is Shabbat. In its essence, and paradoxically through its restrictions, it frees us from the chains of everyday life that so bind and constrict us. It allows for a freedom of the spirit and the imagination, for thought and for rest, which are almost universally absent from our regular six-day workweek. The Talmud elevated this notion to new heights, adding that freedom was inscribed on the tablets of the law that Moshe brought down from Sinai. Only by understanding the divine law and by appreciating one’s role in the universe that God created can one achieve a proper understanding of the gift of freedom.

It is obvious that misapplication of freedom has led to untold tragedies for millions of people throughout the history of mankind. The responsibilities of freedom are great. They are also demanding, requiring perspective and inner discipline. These items are the gifts of the Shabbat to the Jewish people, for they shape the ideas and goals of freedom for all who partake of the holy nature of that day. Without education and training, freedom itself may become an unbearable burden and a liability instead of an asset. 

Perhaps this Shabbat becomes the Great Shabbat because it teaches us how to be free and protects us from the lethal dangers of misapplied freedom. Freedom is not measured only by outside forces, governments and societal pressures. It is also measured by the internal emotions and mindset of the individual. One can live in the freest of societies and yet feel that one is a captive and a slave. 

A scene in a book by one of the Russian Jewish dissidents describes how he shared a cell with a clergyman of another faith, a monotheistic believer and a person who was moral to his very core. In one of the many discussions that this Jewish dissident had with his cellmate, they both concluded that only in this dungeon did they both feel completely free. And though they both desired to be released from the prison, they agreed that they probably would never again feel themselves to be as free as they did at that moment in the darkness of the jail. 

All the rules and ideas that are expressed in the Torah are meant to imbue in us this concept of freedom. Freedom is the connection of ourselves to our inner soul and to the Creator that has fashioned us all.