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Excerpt from D'var Torah Mishpatim

The Torah portion Mishpatim offers several commandments regarding the relationship between human beings. This interpretation of the text suggests that even today we can take powerful lessons from a literal message about not standing by while another person suffers.

By Mick Fine
Reprinted with Permission from Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger.

What does this have to do with us in 2010? I surely don’t own any slaves, and slavery was abolished in this country hundreds of years ago, so I guess my job here is done. Well, not so fast. Another ki exists that might help explain this ki.

“Kit ere shor o hamor achicha nofel baderech – If / when you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen by the road, “V’hitalamta mehem – ha’kem takim imo”. – Don’t ignore it, with him raise it up.”

Here we have another ki, a situation one might experience, in which again, the natural impulse might be to ignore the issue, allow it to continue indefinitely. Here we are told again – NO, YOU must not allow suffering to continue indefinitely, YOU are above that, YOU change the world for the better and YOU see the continuation of the status quo as being utterly unacceptable.

Ibn Ezra comments on this week’s parsha, and it’s limiting of slavery:

“ואין לאדם בעולם יותר קשה עליו מהיותו ברשות אדם כמוהו”
“There is nothing harder in the world for a man than to be in the rshut of another like him.”

We know the word rshut means: “property of”, and we also know that it has a second meaning: optional.
So what are the options? We either treat humans as humans, who need to live a human-like life; or ignore the suffering of a fellow man, which we’ve learned that we can’t even do in the case of animals (ki tere… as well as other prohibitions against ignoring the suffering of animals).

So let’s look at our situation today.
 

• More than 17 MILLION children live in food insecure households – Meaning they live in a situation in which they are unsure if dinner is happening, or if they are going to sleep hungry. UNACCEPTABLE!
• More than 49 MILLION people in this country live in households considered to be food insecure. UNACCEPTABLE!
• In Ohio (my home state), 1 in 6 children is hungry or at risk of hunger. 1 in 6! UNACCEPTABLE!

Read the rest of Mick Fine's D'var Torah at Mazon.org.