Rav Kook (Orot haTeshuva, 13:5)

(as translated in Song of Teshuva, Vol. 3)

Printable PDF available here.

The best and most authentic way of engaging in teshuvah, a way that flows from the light of Torah within the world, is to learn and review the monetary laws and all other laws regarding interpersonal interactions, as found in Choshen Mishpat. This study should be undertaken with clarity, breadth of knowledge, and profound and straight incisiveness.

This rectifies all of the obstacles of the heart that occur in a person’s life, establishes Divine justice upon its most stable basis, and removes the wound of doubt and confusion from a person’s soul. Its clear light  illuminates one’s pathway in practical, day-to-day living.

However, a person must also develop his heart and mind by means of the other parts of Torah – in particular, by means of the moral and contemplative influence… found in the “dew of light.” He must train his inner thoughts in lofty, Divine modes of comprehension. As a result, his soul will be capable of clinging tightly to the Divine justice within the legal portion of the “Torah of life” (lit. תורת חיים). Then this field of technical, legal study of Choshen Mishpat will uplift and elevate him.

Commentary (R. Moshe Weinberger, Song of Teshuva)

There are two ways in which people may be persuaded to adhere to a code of moral conduct. The first is through a society’s use of governmental authority to enforce a body of law. Every civilized society creates thousands of laws whose purpose is to inculcate in its citizens a respect for other people and their property. A person who does not abide by these regulations is subject to punishment. In this approach, human beings are seen as wild animals, which the government must prevent from destroying each other. This perspective is alluded to in our Sages’ statement, “If not for fear of the government, one person would swallow up another alive” (Pirkei Avos3:2).

A person who is motivated by such laws alone does not improve internally. He refrains from misbehaving only if he believes that he might otherwise get in trouble, and he may seek out ways in which he can get away with doing wrong. Government does not attempt to transform a person so that he will be in touch with and express the essence of who he is. It does not address his inner core. Rather, it imposes an external framework that determines proper behavior. Although governmental laws and regulations can prevent a person from taking somebody else’s possessions, they cannot force him to become holy and truly upright. They cannot even keep him from engaging in all kinds of behavior – subtle or not so subtle – that hurts others. Such an imposition of laws has brought about tremendous improvement in civilization – particularly in the drive to create more just and equal societies. But this is an artificial effort that cannot bring about a fundamental inner transformation. The second way in which a person comes to adhere to a code of moral conduct, is by carefully and thoroughly learning Choshen Mishpat, which provides Hashem’s guidelines for proper conduct between Jews.

Practically speaking, not everybody can learn Choshen Mishpat in the original. There are various alternative ways to learn these laws: simpler renditions, abridgments, and presentations in English. A person must learn to the best of his ability how Hashem’s Torah guides us in our relationships with each other. Only Torah can change a person’s will and transform his desires until he reaches a point where “the property of your fellow should be as dear to you as your own” (Pirkei Avos2:17).

For instance, in order to overcome his feelings of jealousy, a person must learn that wealth consists of the ability to rejoice with whatever Hashem has given him (Pirkei Avos4:1). The Torah is not just concerned with the effect of a person’s actions on others. Rather, it is concerned with his underlying inner being. This is reflected in the fact that the rabbinic compendium on moral behavior, which deals primarily with how people treat each other, is not called Chapters of the Sages but Chapters of the Fathers (Pirkei Avos). It presents the sort of wisdom that comes from a parent. A parent is not only concerned that his children should refrain from hurting other children, that they should not grow up to be thieves or liars. Rather, a parent’s deepest wish and dream is that his children should be great people.

Only Hashem’s Torah, which offers instruction on how to love and respect other Jews, can elevate a person from his naturally selfish state. In particular, Choshen Mishpat reveals G-d’s righteousness and truth through its body of law, which reflects an absolute truth that is not subject to Supreme Court decisions or votes by self-interested politicians…

The verse states that “the inclination of a person’s heart is evil from his youth” (Bereishis 8:21). From an early age, human beings get so caught up in this world that they lack a higher perspective. As a result, they are inclined to be dishonest. The Torah is a Jew’s only source of moral clarity, which can raise him up. As he learns G-d’s laws, he gains access to absolute truth, which removes the confusion and uncertainties in his soul regarding what is good. And that makes it possible for him to influence others as well – in particular, the next generation. Children learn to be upright when they see adults acting with integrity – when, for instance, they see their parents talk to each other in a sweet and respectful way. Traditionally, when boys begin to study Talmud, they learn Nezikin – the tractates of Gemara dealing with the laws that are codified in Choshen Mishpat. These tractates teach a person how to be righteous. He comes to appreciate that something that belongs to one person may not be taken by someone else. As he continues to learn Nezikin and Choshen Mishpat throughout his life, his mind becomes attuned to the mind of G-d. The halachos that guide our treatment of others do not leave the determination of right and wrong to our imagination. They direct us on a path that forces us away from our preoccupation with our ego, with what is good for us, and lead us to focus on those around us. They direct our attention to issues such as how loud we may play music at night and whether an extension that we want to build onto our house will bother the neighbors. These halachos, which come from “a faithful G-d without iniquity, Who is just and straight” (Devarim 32:4), straighten out all that is crooked within us, and remove our inclination for falsehood.

They provide us with a perspective that is without haziness and doubt. Although they seem dry, they are filled with G-dly life and vibrancy. A person’s doubt and bewilderment, which stem from his confused ideas of right and wrong, separate him from G-d. When he studies Choshen Mishpat, his mind is illuminated by G-d’s absolute definitions, and so his doubts dissipate.

For some people, Choshen Mishpat is intellectually exciting. They may formulate beautiful structures of halachic thought and be scrupulous in their observance of halachos. Yet, at the same time, their hearts might be empty and their learning sterile. [However] G-d’s presence suffuses every halachah, which expresses His absolute truth and righteousness. But since halachah does not openly express G-dliness, the soul of a person who learns little else is not prepared to be spiritually uplifted. And then halacha seems to be no more than a complicated and at times overwhelming legal system.

Therefore, a person who wishes to mind to spirituality must sensitize his heart and learn the “dew of light” – the parts of Torah that contain aggados, midrashim, and deeper explanations of our Sages teachings…. Then he sees that all parts of Torah – even the most technical teachings of halacha and Gemara – are beautiful and alive.

Unfortunately, there are many Jews who, although they learned for years in yeshiva and kollel, can barely force themselves to attend a Daf Yomi shiur. When a person is young, the competitive aspect and intellectual enjoyment of learning Torah can keep him in the beis medrash for fifteen hours a day. He is inspired by talks about the dedication of [great gedolim]…. He spends as many years in yeshiva and kollel as he can, until the necessities of life catch up with him and force him to go to work. Twenty years pass and he is now a middle-aged… man caught up in the need to earn a living, to devote his mind to outsmarting his competition and winning new customers. He is weary, bitter, and disappointed. At home, his children are not the children that he wanted, and his wife is not the wife that he expected.

After the day’s work and complications of family life, he is too tired to learn halachah or Gemara with the strength and excitement that he had possessed at the age of seventeen. And so he learns for perhaps an hour, and on his days off he barely manages to learn more. He is disgusted with himself. Now stories about how R. Isser Zalman learned until his last breath only serve to remind him of how worthless he is. He is battered and beaten by the world, no longer spiritually alive. He no longer has a passion for learning. The fire is no longer burning.

But he can revive himself with the inner aspect of Torah, which is the dew of life. Then he can reclaim the youthful excitement that he had once possessed when he had learned Shulchan Aruch and Gemara. When a person constantly learns the inner teachings of Torah, then the dry, legal areas of Torah moisten, lift up, and strengthen the essence of his soul.

Questions for Discussion

1. Rav Kook describes the study of monetary and interpersonal halacha as “the best and most authentic way of engaging in teshuvah.” But we don’t typically associate Choshen Mishpat with teshuva. Why is that? And how is Rav Kook approaching the concept of teshuva differently than we usually think of it?
2. Look through Parshat Mishpatim – can you identify some areas of bein adam l’chaveiro where the Torah’s ethical demands are higher than those of the society we live in?
3. What part of the Torah’s “dew of light” inspires you and makes you excited about Torah Judaism?
4. How do we teach Torah in a way that makes even the most technical and legal aspects seem beautiful and alive?
5. Every civilized society has laws to govern interpersonal relationships and ensure a semblance of order. What makes the Torah’s laws unique?
6. What is an area of monetary or interpersonal halacha that you are interested in learning more about, or can be more careful about observing?
7. Below is a comment from Rashi on the first pasuk of Mishpatim. How does it support Rav Kook’s insights above?

* And these are the ordinances… “And these” means this is adding to what has been previously stated. Just as what has been previously stated [i.e., the Ten Commandments] were from Sinai, these too were from Sinai. Now why was the section dealing with laws juxtaposed to the section dealing with the altar? To tell you that you shall place the Sanhedrin adjacent to the beit hamikdash.

* That you shall set before them… G-d said to Moses: Do not think of saying, “I will teach them the chapter or the law two or three times until they know it well, as it was taught, but I will not trouble myself to enable them to understand the reasons for the matter and its explanation.” Therefore, it is said: “you shall set before them,” like a table set [with food] and prepared to eat from, placed before someone.

Printable PDF available here.

Rav Kook (Orot, ישראל ותחייתו ג)

Excerpted from Bezalel Naor’s excellent English translation of Orot, published by Maggid.

The center of life of the soul of Israel is in the source of holiness. Through truth and faith we were born and thereby we grow. We do not have disparate values; unity rests in us and the light of the One Lord lives within us. The laws, laws of the Living G-d’s Torah, distinguish us from every other nation. Holiness is at work on us internally, the great aspirations of our life are directed to it. There are inklings of holiness in every nation, but not all of their life values stem therefrom. This is not so in Israel. “In all of your ways know Him” (בכל דרכיך דעהו), that small passage that encompasses the entire corpus of Torah, which is actualized by rare individuals, is actually the inheritance of all Israel. In Israel, every life’s aspiration and life’s desire – acquisition, wealth, honor, dominion, expansion – flowfrom the source of holiness. Therefore, the laws are holy-of-holies in Israel, and therefore the semikhah (institution of rabbinic ordination) that bears the name of G-d is so vital to us and essential to our national character. The evil Syrian-Greeks intuited the value of this great treasure and forbid the semikhah, on pain of death. One of our Sages (Rabbi Judah ben Bava) even gave his life to preserve it, and the effect of that martyrdom redounds, for it deepened the special character of Israel, holy to the Lord.

Moses our Teacher grasped the power of the law when it was first instituted in the nation, and uplifted all the values of law until the end of generations, to the divine content to which the laws of Israel reach, and the search for G-d became inseparable from Israelite jurisprudence. [As we read in Parshat Yitro, when Moshe explains to his father in law,] “When the people will come to me to seek G-d, when they will have a matter come to me, I shall judge between a man and his neighbor. And I shall make known the laws of G-d and His precepts.” (Shemot 18:15-16) The G-d-quest of Law has remained an Israelite treasure…

However, Christianity abandoned law, rooted herself in apparent mercy and love that undermines the world and destroys it. By emptying law of its divine content, the law becomes seized by the grossest wickedness. The poison invades the private law of the individual and spreads through the souls of nations, becoming the foundation of national hatred and the depth of evil of bloodshed, without removing the yoke from man’s neck. The eyes of all must be lifted to the light of the world, the light of the Lord, which will be revealed through the Messiah of the G-d of Jacob. “And He shall judge earth righteously, nations justly.” (Tehillim 9:9)

Food for Thought

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Covenant and Conversation, 5767): just as the general principles of Judaism… are Divine, so are the details. In the 1960s the Danish architect Arne Jacobson designed a new college campus in Oxford. Not content with designing the building, he went on to design the cutlery and crockery to be used in the dining hall, and supervised the planting of every shrub in the college garden. When asked why, he replied in the words of another architect, Mies van der Rohe: “G-d is in the details.”

That is a Jewish sentiment. There are those who believe that what is holy in Judaism is its broad vision, never so compellingly expressed as in the Decalogue at Sinai. The truth however is that G-d is in the details: “Just as the former were given at Sinai, so these [the civil laws] were given at Sinai.” The greatness of Judaism is not simply in its noble vision of a free, just and compassionate society, but in the way it brings this vision down to earth in detailed legislation. Freedom is more than an abstract idea…

The second principle, no less fundamental, is that civil law is not secular law. We do not believe in the idea “render to Caesar what is Caeser’s and to G-d what belongs to G-d”. We believe in the separation of powers but not in the secularisation of law or the spiritualisation of faith. The Sanhedrin or Supreme Court must be placed near the Temple to teach that law itself must be driven by a religious vision….

The Jewish vision of justice, given its detailed articulation here for the first time, is based not on expediency or pragmatism, nor even on abstract philosophical principles, but on the concrete historical memories of the Jewish people as “one nation under G-d.” Centuries earlier, G-d has chosen Abraham so that he would “teach his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, by doing what is right and just.” (Bereishit 18:19) Justice in Judaism flows from the experience of injustice at the hands of the Egyptians, and the G-d-given challenge to create a radically different form of society in Israel…

From earliest times, Judaism expected everyone to know and understand the law. Legal knowledge is not the closely guarded property of an elite. It is – in the famous phrase – “the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.” (Devarim 33:4) Already in the first century CE Josephus could write that “should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls. Hence to break them is rare, and no one can evade punishment by the excuse of ignorance.” That is why there are so many Jewish lawyers. Judaism is a religion of law – not because it does not believe in love (“You shall love the Lord your G-d”, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”) but because, without justice, neither love nor liberty nor human life itself can flourish. Love alone does not free a slave from his or her chains.

Tehillim (147:20): He tells His words to Ya’akov, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. He did not do so for any nation, and they do not know the law (lit. mishpatim).

Rabbi Shlomo Zuckier (What Is Jewish Law?): Throughout human history, the realm of law has been given multiple purposes. In some societies, the law is a statement of a society’s values, how one ought to live; among this set of ideals is an account of how society deals with those who violate the law, and the creation of an administrative or executive system. In other societies, there is less of an idealistic view of the law, and law’s function is simply to create order. The goal of law is not to educate but simply to discipline, to put into line those who diverge from its norms, with the goal of creating a safe, organized society. What is the perspective of Jewish law on this issue?

The account of law provided by the Tur (Spain, 1300s) strikes a highly universalist note. For example, the Mishnah from Avot that he explicates establishes that justice is a pillar upon which the entire world stands. He offers a historical trajectory of law that begins with the creation of the world and explains, among other things, why the (pre-Jewish) generation of the deluge failed to properly dispense justice and caused the world to be destroyed. The judge is lauded for his efforts “to break the outstretched arms of evil doers, taking from them their spoils and returning it to its owns,” which “upholds the world.” There is nothing specifically Jewish about this account of the value of law and the judge, although of course Halakhah charges Jewish society to ensure the rule of law. This, of course, is consistent with his position that the goal of Jewish law courts, just like any law court, is to ensure law and order. This is a challenge to society for all times, for all peoples, and Jews participate in it like any other nation.

On the other hand, the Ran (Spain, 1400s) goes out of his way to mention that the court’s role is a special one, unique to the Jewish people and Jewish law. He acknowledges that “the human species” and “every nation” has a need for some form of governance, so as to avoid anarchy and destruction. However, this aspect of governance is not the goal of mishpat, or Jewish law in its classical sense. The Ran is careful to attribute such a role to the king, who does whatever is necessary to create order, regardless of its coherence with Torah, rather than to the Jewish courts, which rule on the basis of Halakhah. While the king is recruited to fill a role “like all the other nations around” Israel (Deuteronomy 17:14, I Samuel 8:5), Jewish law is particularly Jewish, its basis in the Torah, which “is unique among all the laws of the nations of the world as to its laws and commandments.”

For the Ran the goal of applying Jewish law is bringing G-d into the world through implementing G-d’s law. This not only is important in itself, but also because it causes G-d’s will to be manifest in the world. The judge, then, is partner to G-d in the sense that he serves as a conduit bringing G-d’s law from the theoretical realm into the practical, day-to-day world.

Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 26:1): It is forbidden to appear for trial before non-Jewish Judges and in their courts, even regarding a matter that they adjudicate the same as the halacha… And whoever does so is considered a wicked person and is as though he blasphemed, reproached and rebelled against the Law of Moshe.

Questions for Discussion

1. Can you think of any instances in Jewish life where love and justice clash? How does the Torah reconcile those competing demands?
2. How do the parshiot that come after the narrative of matan Torah emphasize the centrality of law in Judaism?
3. Rav Kook argues that Christianity embodies the danger of love untethered from any notion of law. Where do you think he is coming from?
4. People often talk about the ‘spirit of the law.’ What does this mean? And how do we determine what it is?
5. See the excerpt from Rabbi Shlomo Zuckier above in “Food for Thought.” Which position do you think is more correct?
6. What can you do to cultivate a greater appreciation of and understanding for the laws of the Torah?