Even Monetary Laws from Sinai, Not from Reason

1“And these are the laws that you shall set before them.”¹ The receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai was an exalted and awesome event, with a great revelation upon the mountain. Why, then, right after it, did the Holy One, blessed be He, begin by teaching His people, of all things, the monetary laws between a person and his fellow? At first glance, after so exalted an event it would have seemed more fitting to turn to the mitzvos of His Oneness, of deveikus, cleaving to Him, of loving Him and fearing Him, and the like.

2Rashi comments: “‘And these’ adds to the earlier ones: just as the earlier ones were from Sinai, so these too are from Sinai.” The commentators, the Shelah and the Tzafnas Pane'ach, raise a difficulty here. The Yerushalmi teaches that everything a seasoned student will one day bring forth as a new insight was already told to Moshe at Sinai.² Why, then, did the Torah state this outright specifically about these laws?

3On “that you shall set before them,” Rashi explains: “‘Before them,’ and not before idol-worshippers.” This too needs explaining. Even when the gentiles judge a case exactly as Torah law would, why may we not bring it before them? [Rashi does explain that the reason is chillul Hashem, the desecration of Hashem's Name, and that a person who does this brings honor to the name of idolatry. But we still need to understand why it is forbidden even where the public will not know that he went to their court. The Alshich and the Kli Yakar ask this as well.]

4My holy father and teacher, zt"l, explained the words “just as the earlier ones were from Sinai” through a teaching of the holy Rebbe R' Yechezkel of Kuzmir, zt"l. That teaching concerns the words of the Rosh Hashanah prayer, “And in Your Torah it is written, saying: ‘Hear, O Israel …’”³ Every part of the Torah we learn, the Rebbe of Kuzmir explained, is meant to bring us to the Oneness of Hashem that the verse “Hear, O Israel” declares. Even the chapter Shnayim Ochazin, “Two are holding a garment,” about disputed property, and the like, serves this purpose. That is the meaning of “And in Your Torah it is written, saying: ‘Hear, O Israel’”: everything in the Torah is saying “Hear, O Israel.” On this basis my holy father explained “just as the earlier ones were from Sinai.” Just as at the giving of the Ten Commandments the Holy One, blessed be He, opened all seven heavens and Israel saw that He is the only One,⁴ so too “these are from Sinai.” Parshas Mishpatim and all the laws of the Torah are likewise meant to bring us to His Oneness.

5To understand all this, we may say the following, building on what the commentators explain at the beginning of Tractate Avos,⁵ and we will explain it more fully. We know that the nations of the world, too, have codes and laws for governing their countries. The difference between them and Bnei Yisrael is that Bnei Yisrael did not invent their codes and standards of conduct themselves; we received it all at Sinai. So among the nations, if a new ruler comes to power and something does not seem right to him, he can abolish the codes that were in place before him. That is why we see the nations sometimes sink into corruption. But among Bnei Yisrael, all the codes and laws stand forever and can never be replaced, since we do not go by our own reason. Even the monetary laws are like the other mitzvos, for everything comes from the Creator.

6This explains the words “just as the earlier ones were from Sinai, so these too are from Sinai.” Even the monetary laws, which reason can grasp and would oblige us to follow on its own, must still be kept only because we received them at Sinai, and not because reason points to them. For the same reason, we may not add to the laws of the Torah other laws and rules that reason calls for, since everything must be given from Sinai.

7This answers our first question. That is why it was right after the giving of the Torah that the Holy One, blessed be He, began teaching Israel the laws between a person and his fellow. He wanted to show them and teach them this very point: even the monetary laws hold the same holiness as everything else that was said at Sinai. All of it serves to increase the glory of Heaven. The whole Torah is from Heaven, Torah from Sinai, and its commands do not come from human reason.

8This is also what Chazal mean by “‘before them,’ and not before gentiles.” Gentiles cannot know how to carry out monetary laws according to the will of the Creator, since, as is well known, they cannot subordinate their reason to the glory of His Name. [The nations of the world do sometimes judge according to Torah law,⁶ yet they do not understand the idea of a chok, a decree kept because the Creator commanded it; they carry out the law according to their own reason. Even when they act according to the Torah, it is only because their reason has drawn this from the Torah by a crooked path, for they learn the Torah to suit what they want, with a crooked mind and heart. This is the meaning of “And in Your Torah it is written, saying: ‘Hear, O Israel’”: throughout the Torah we must see that its whole point is “Hear, O Israel,” to give ourselves over completely to Hashem and not to follow our own reasoning.]

9In this light we can explain a verse in our parshah, “Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest,”⁷ and another verse in the Torah, “Six days you shall work, and on the seventh day you shall rest.”⁸ The commentators, among them the Abarbanel, the Alshich and the Akeidas Yitzchak, raise a difficulty.⁹ The plain wording of these verses seems to say that Hashem commands a person to work during the six weekdays, and that is astonishing. We may say, however, that the verse means this. When a person goes about his work, he must not do it because his reason tells him he needs it for his livelihood. He must work mainly because this is now the will of Hashem, blessed be He, and because Hashem commanded, “Six days you shall work and do your work.”

10May it be His will that we be privileged to serve Hashem with self-nullification and to accept upon ourselves the yoke of the kingship of Heaven with love, and that through this we bring near the redemption with the coming of the righteous Redeemer. Amen.