Parashat Mishpatim - Exodus 21:22-27
The portion we are discussing today is variously described as the most misunderstood, or the most wrongly infamous passage in the Torah.
…”life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, so on and so forth…”
Many commentaries discuss the distinction between the Written Torah vs. the Oral Torah, or how literally should we follow what is written in the Torah vs. what is fair and correct?
So, does “an eye for an eye” really mean “an eye for an eye”?
Consider what one of the Jewish world's most beloved characters says (no, not Jon Stewart): Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof”:
“if everyone lived by an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the world would be blind and toothless.”
According to the traditional interpretation of Torah, these words are not to be understood in the literal sense, but as a judgment of monetary compensation according to the harm inflicted in five areas:
The Kabbalists have a story concerning the reaction of two parents when they learn that their son has committed a grave offense.
The father immediately raises his hand to punish his son, but the mother protests and rushes to stop his raised arm. “Please, not in anger!” she pleads, and she convinces the father to mete out a lighter punishment. In the end, the child was not hit.
Even though he was only lightly disciplined, the son was made to understand that his actions deserved a much more severe punishment but that the greater learning need not be experienced through a harsher punishment than what was necessary.
According to A. Cohen, in “Everyman's Talmud”, only the unlearned maintain that this portion is originally meant literally.
After all, how do you punish: A blind man who knocks out the eye of another or toothless man who knocks out the teeth of another?
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the great 19th century leader of german jewry, stated that the laws of this section of the Torah “are to be administered without cruelty so as to promote real justice.”
Seemingly, this week's torah portion prescribes vengeance and barbarism as punishment for damaging another person. Where is the divine justice in the Torah's punishment scale? How do you calculate the proper punishment?
The Ibn Ezra, a classic commentator on the Torah, also refutes a literal interpretation by bringing up the concepts of proportionality and value: It is simply impossible to damage another person's eye as punishment and be assured of causing the precise amount of damage that was inflicted on the original victim.
Rashi explains the concept this way: one who blinds someone else's eye pays the damaged person money in proportion to the damage done.
Rabbi Hirsch goes further by translating the word “tachat” in this verse not as “for” as in “an eye for an eye” but rather “instead of”, or “an eye instead of an eye”. This definition implies that the compensation payment is intended to fill the void of the missing eye, whereas poking out someone else's eye would only offer the damaged party REVENGE.
Another modern day commentator, Rabbi Dan Bridge, goes even further and explains that the Torah is trying to regulate the ancient concept of vengeance. The Torah is speaking spiritually and morally. Any of these situations involving examples of violence or destruction - are all wrong - the initial act as well as the retribution.
The Torah is actually trying to teach us that taking an eye or a tooth or inflicting physical harm on someone is so wrong it is as if the offending party should lose what they themselves have taken. So, it is really a testament not so much to what an appropriate punishment is, but to emphasize how wrong it is to harm someone else, how we really should be treating others, in all aspects of our lives, how should we be acting as Jews especially if it means harming others?
Rabbi Norman Cohen says that this portion questions the excesses or lack of self-control in human nature and that it actually serves to place a limit on what is fair and permissible.
Very recently, Israel has come under withering criticism for using “disproportionate force” against Hamas in Gaza thus severely damaging the infrastructure and killing and wounding many civilians in response to constant rocket attacks over the years.
Rabbi Ken Spiro notes that stories in the Talmud are meant to illustrate the important points in the jewish worldview. Jewish law was never applied by reading a sentence in the torah and executing it to the letter.
“What's the good of having two blind people?”
It was always understood that justice must be proportional.
Which brings us to two more examples: one from America's favorite Jewish television situation comedy, Seinfeld, and another from a local actual event.
So while Jerry is brushing his teeth in his girlfriend, Jenna's, bathroom, he accidentally knocks her toothbrush into the toilet. Before he can tell her, Jenna is already brushing her teeth with the toothbrush.
Now Jerry doesn't want to kiss her and is afraid to tell her the real reason. Finally, he blurts out what happened and when he's not looking, Jenna has placed something from his apartment in the toilet, but refuses to tell him what it is.
Jerry drives himself crazy trying to figure out what she put in his toilet and as a result of her action of retribution, throws out nearly everything he owns, even all his dishes. Jenna finally tells him that the mystery item was nothing more than his toilet brush, and they reconcile.
We all live by choices. Perhaps the spiritually higher path for Jenna would have been to explain that she was disappointed in his lack of honesty and either given him another chance, or to have simply said adios, and left.
But she chose an arguably disproportionate punishment, one that resulted in costing Jerry not only in anxiety but loss of material possessions much greater than the cost of the toothbrush and what she endured.
But God was watching all of this. And God always has the last laugh. Especially in Seinfeld, and in the end, she receives retribution from God.
When Violeta Barrios, the matriarch of the Barrios family, proprietors of the well-known Mexican restaurant, Los Barrios was murdered in her home in the course of a robbery by a young neighbor, instead of trying to exact vengeance and call for revenge, her children decided that the best way they could honor the lovingkindness of their mother's nature would be to publicly forgive the young man. They even tried to hire defense counsel for him. This was clearly an example of people given the option, chose to pursue the spiritual higher path What could they achieve for themselves in a punishment of the young man that killed their mother? That wasn't the example she left for them.
We all need to accept responsibility for our actions as well as our relationships with others. The Jewish religion, for one, bases its most observed holidays, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, around this concept. This is why we have laws, as well as a history of commentary to help us understand the true meaning of these laws. Maimonides, for one, believed that the perpetrator is not fully exonerated until he has asked the one he has injured, for forgiveness.
So how do we select the appropriate response to an injury, if any action at all? Jenna, Jerry's girlfriend, wanted to get back at Jerry. The Barrios family, decided to forgive and even assist the boy who murdered their mother.
Whether it be between nations or individuals, or parents and children, we need to ask ourselves if our proposed response to a perceived slight or injury is the right one or is it emotional -- to exact revenge, which by its own nature, may create an additional actual cost as well as a spiritual and moral burden onto our souls.
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