Mishpatim: One Lesson the World Needs to Hear

The Hebrew Bible is many things - the story of Creation, the story of Exodus from Egypt, the commandments and laws of Judaism - but undoubtedly a central element of the Torah’s message is a blueprint for the establishment of a society in the land promised to our forefathers. No where in Torah is this seen more clearly than in this week’s portion of Mishpatim.

After last week’s drama of the Ten Commandments and the broad foundational framing on which Jewish faith sits, this week we read how God delivered the first of a series of civil laws about how to construct a society. These include laws relating to, among other things, personal injuries, property, social responsibility, justice, and compassion, as well as laws relating to Shabbat and the festivals.?

Among the various laws is the law prohibiting kidnapping which is connected to the eighth of the Ten Commandments, Lo Tignov, “Do not steal”. This is obviously a highly relevant topic given the ongoing and challenging situation in the war between Israel and Hamas. At the time of writing, 136 of the 240 hostages remain captives of the Hamas terrorists in the most appalling conditions in the network of terror tunnels that exists under the streets, houses, hospitals, and schools of Gaza. Some of the hostages are already assumed by Israel to be dead. For those who remain alive, we continue to pray for their immediate and safe return.

Returning to our Torah portion, the text intersperses the law against kidnapping between the prohibition of striking or cursing a parent:??

One who wounds his father or mother shall be put to death. One who kidnaps a person shall be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or found in his possession. One who curses his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21: 15-17)

The question that interests several rabbinic commentators is why the Torah specifically again refers to the law against kidnapping here, sandwiched between the warnings about the effect of cursing or striking a parent?

One of the most well-known interpretations is by the tenth century commentator Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon who suggested that, at the time he was writing, the majority of those kidnapped were young children. Such children, he explained, grow up in a different place, unaware of their parent’s identity. As a result there was a real possibility that such children could grow up to strike or curse their parents unintentionally. It is for this reason, argued Rabbi Gaon, that “it is fitting to punish the kidnapper with the death penalty” for being the cause of the child to sin against his parents.

Other commentators suggest alternative explanations for the placement of this law against kidnapping and why it warranted the ultimate punishment of death.

The first century sage Philo (25 BCE - 50 CE) suggested that: “A kidnapper is … a thief who steals the most pre-eminent entity that exists upon the earth. If somebody steals an inanimate object, which has negligible value, the law says the thief must pay a double price to its owners (Exodus 22: 8). Man is a being who stands in near relation to God Himself, by virtue of his capacity to reason, which makes him immoral. Therefore, anyone who kidnaps a person is liable to death.” Bearing in mind that in Philo’s time, people would kidnap not primarily to harm, but as a way to make money. Despite this, for Philo, it was the holiness of the object the kidnapper desired - human life itself - that meant he/she deserved to face the death penalty.

Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz (1550 - 1619), better known as the Keli Yakar, argued that it was the situation and the vulnerability those captives were placed in by their captors that warranted the death penalty. By this point in history, kidnapping had become less about financial gain and more about the violent act intended to harm. As he wrote: “Captivity presents the most difficult suffering of all since the captors have the power to inflict all manner of torment on the captive. Hence kidnapping is a capital offence.”?

However, there is one interpretation which, for me at least, resonates strongly given the current state of the world. It is offered by Rabbi Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel (1437 - 1508), more commonly known as the Abarbanel. He suggests that whether the kidnapped victim remains unharmed or is prepared to forgive the kidnapper for their actions, the kidnapper’s behaviour must not be excused, “because tolerating such conduct leads to the deterioration of society. This is why the matter of kidnapping is presented here between the issues of striking and cursing parents [for respecting parents is similarly critical to the structures of civilisation].”

For Rabbi Abarbanel, these seemingly unconnected laws of striking one’s parents and kidnapping are placed next together because combined they teach us something greater than the sum of their parts. The acts are bad, in and of themselves. But what is worse is what it says about the society in which we live that such things as cursing one’s parents and kidnapping other people should exist.

In the days after the atrocities of the 7th October massacre in southern Israel, as details of the barbarity of the terrorists’ actions of that dark day came to light, one episode entered my mind as I read these verses and wrote this article. It was the report of the Hamas terrorist who entered Mefalsim, a kibbutz near the Gaza border, and in the midst of his killing spree, phoned home using one of his victim’s phones to proudly boast to his parents back in Gaza how he had murdered ten Jews.

“Look how many I killed with my own hand! Your son killed Jews!” he says in Arabic. “May God protect you,” his father replies. Later in the conversation he adds: “Mum, your son is a hero.” “I wish I was with you,” replies his mother. Instead of curses, the terrorist received praise from his parents. Finally, when urged to return home by his father, his son responds: “What do you mean come back [to Gaza]? There’s no going back - it is either death or victory.”?

Rabbi Arbarbanel was right: the existence of kidnapping represents the decay of a society. Perhaps the world is beginning to see Hamas for what it really is, and for the kind of world it is trying to create. Or perhaps some of the world and its institutions are sometimes too quick to turn a blind eye to the reality of the war Israel is fighting. Either way, the lesson the world needs to hear is that those who choose to kidnap, kidnap our society if we fail to eliminate them from our midst.?

Shabbat shalom.