Mishpatim: A messy life meets a clear revelation
Shemot 21:1-24:18
Summary: Not sure where this one came from, but here it is. Using archetypal psychologist James Hillman’s idea of “psychological polytheism” I suggest that many of our stories (and the characters within them) live inside of us, unresolved and interacting, as we try to make sense of our messy lives.
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The Greek pantheon is messy. It doesn’t resolve well. The various gods and heroes don’t accept their respective positions in a well-articulated hierarchy. Rather, they are beset with jealousy, vie for power, upset balances, devour their own children, marry siblings, violate boundaries, and often live and die tragically. Imagine being Prometheus for a day. Don’t worry - your liver will grow back.
For archetypal psychologist James Hillman, the chaos of the mythological pantheon reflects a similar chaos that roils each of us. We also play host to an array of characters and characteristics that, urges, compulsions and aspirations and, despite our firmest wishes that they would be organized, honor their positions in the hierarchy, and behave themselves, they refuse to do so. Our inner Prometheus keeps stealing the fire, and our inner Zeus continues to punish our inner Prometheus for stealing the fire, and our inner Prometheus’ inner liver keeps getting eaten by our inner eagle. For Hillman, if you could open up a person’s brain and understand it’s language, you’d see these characters and characteristics bubbling up constantly
Jews also have an inner this and inner that. We don’t tend to organize it around Greek myths (which doesn’t necessarily mean that those archetypes are not operating within us just the same) but we do organize around Jewish stories. These stories are in our mother’s milk from the beginning - we learn about Avraham’s tent, the binding of Yitzhak, Ya’akov stealing the blessings, Yoseph in the pit, etc. And though we might want those stories to tidy up nicely and convey nice, simple, easy-to-follow morals like “always welcome in guests” and “do what God says” and “always through your brother in a pit if you don’t like his dreams”, it rarely goes that way.
These stories don’t resolve nicely in our inner spaces just like they don’t end well in the Book. Yes, Yoseph ends up in a position of power in Egypt and that is really important because he is able to provide for his family at the beginning of exile. And yet, we cannot help but notice that his relationship with his father is stilted and awkward, his estranged brothers think he wants to kill them, he falls out of favor with Pharaoh, and he dies young from the stress of it all.
Questions persist. The bad parts of the good guys continue to stick out and resist easy resolution - Yitzhak chooses favorites, Rivkah manipulates Yitzhak, Ya’akov lies to his father. The only person in that story who comes out looking like a mensch is Eisav, whom the rabbis insist is actually totally evil. How do our deeper minds assimilate all these models and produce a clear plan for being good and behaving ourselves?
Further, the strong voices of the people who act badly are not silenced just because we somehow accept that they are bad. Eisav the hunter and his physical prowess, vengeful Shimon and Levi and their clear sense of honor and family, Reuvain and his passionate defense of his mother’s honor - these voices persist as well. They don’t go away just because we were told that they are “wrong” or “bad.” If we were to take an honest look, we’d see that our inner worlds are chaotic like the Greek pantheon is chaotic.
And that’s just the bad moments! Is it so much easier with the good guys and the good moments? Do they line up like the ushpizin and take their turns, one after the other? Are we really so clear on which moments are Moshe moments, challenging us to step forward, and which moments are Aharon moments, accepting us where we are? Does this moment call for the approach of Avraham, who refused to choose a favorite among his sons, or the approach of Yitzhak, who didn’t hesitate to do so?
I would imagine that when we look at our children, Avraham and Yitzhak are both present in our minds, giving us advice, and it is hard to choose amidst the cacophony of voices. Ah, and here comes King David, adding to the confusion as he mourns, “Avshalom! My son! My son!”
In the end, the stories of the Torah don’t really resolve. They are all in there, all speaking to us, all trying to resolve and failing, all teaching us, all alive, repeating, jumping out of order, flaring up and then retreating. Yelling.
That’s alright. All those pieces are meant to remain alive and in motion. They move through secret cycles, they rise and fall, they create tensions that lead to growth and progress, and then pull us back when we’ve gone too far, all the while urging - compelling - us to climb again, get the Torah again, leave Egypt again, get the Torah again. And again.
Our holiday stories, like our patriarchs and matriarchs, line up nicely on paper (or parchment). The Exodus (Passover) leads to the splitting of the sea (7th day Pesach) leads to the receiving of the Torah (Shavuot). Forward and onward through the wilderness (Sukkot) to the land of Israel! (Which the Torah never lets us reach. Just when we are at the border, we are sent back to the garden!) But, like those characters, the holidays don’t behave themselves and stay in line like they are supposed to. They actually repeat in a tossed salad of exodus, split seas, and Torahs received, along with gold calves, Amalek attacks, sustained complaints about lack of water, manna, etc. Said another way, we may well have another exodus moment three days after Shavuot, and another in the middle of Sukkot, even though it’s not “on the calendar”.
But our tradition is not resigned to chaos. Great progress has been made showing us how to identify the shapes of particular moments - is this an exodus moment? A Sinai moment? - and how to be most fully blessed by the gifts those moments have to offer. If this is a Sinai moment, what can I do to receive the Torah of this moment most fully? And what hazards should I be looking out for?
The hazards we know: there are gold cows in those hills. When Moshe goes high, the people go low, and that is a bad combination. Be careful.
And what can we do to receive the Torah most fully, when we are learning, listening, and opening? The story around the giving of the Torah has loads of wisdom to offer us on this. Notice that the giving of the Torah is preceded by the story of Yitro. Moshe’s father in law has seen the light and he has come to join the people. Celebration ensues. The next day, he observes an inefficient system of adjudication and recommends that Moshe appoint local judges to manage the ongoing needs of the people. Judges of 10s, 50s, 100s, and 1000s. People are given real responsibility, and this is a useful preparation for receiving the Torah because someone with responsibility hears things differently. So if I am going to a class, I will listen not just for myself but for the people who are counting on me.
Recognizing the extent of one’s empowerment and responsibility opens up different channels in receiving the Torah. So it makes sense to remind ourselves from time to time how we fit into the larger picture.
A second element we find around the receiving of the Torah, which applied not only at the original moment but also every time we are in a receiving-Torah moment, is the role of teshuva. The Torah connects the Israelites’ arrival at the mountain to receive the Torah with the failures that led to the recent attack of Amalek. And we are told that “just as they left Refidim (where the attack took place) in teshuva, they arrived at Sinai in teshuva.” After the failure and its subsequent attack, they did their work. They identified what it was in them that led to the attack. Not that they could solve or resolve it in that one moment, but they could go to Sinai to receive the Torah with full awareness of their vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and imperfections. They could invite the Torah in to address the places where they would need it most.
A third characteristic of the Israelites’ attitude at the time of receiving the Torah was one of togetherness and unity. “One nation with one heart.” As distinct from a sense of responsibility - “as I receive the Torah I am aware of the people to whom I am bringing it back” - this sense of unity helps a person realize there are people with them, above them, served by them, teaching them, and learning from them. By understanding they are not receiving the Torah in isolation, and that they fit into a larger framework, the Torah they receive will solidify those connections and relationships. It will tighten up the bonds that give the Torah meaning, direction, and form.
These three elements - responsibility, teshuva and connection - all color the experience leading up to a moment of realization. And what should happen afterwards? The Torah points us toward the importance of integration, and this shows up in two ways. The first occurs in Parshat Yitro, immediately after the giving the Torah:
Make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come to you and bless you. And if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them.
Why are we learning about building altars here? Because avodah - prayer and korbanot (usually mistranslated as sacrifices) - is an optimal response to revelation and realization. It is the first stage in integration. After having just been opened to an experience of something beyond myself, I articulate that in the context of the relationship. “Thank you, God, for telling me that and showing me that. I love You. I appreciate knowing this. I hope and pray to do a good job expressing it in the world. I am sure I will mess up sometimes, but I plan to always come back to You. Please support me and be with me.”
The second stage of implementation is outside of learning and outside of prayer. It is in the world. The shocking beginning of the very next parsha - Mishpatim - illustrates the point: “When you buy a Jewish slave.” How did we get from Sinai to having Jewish slaves?? Because the revelation doesn’t change the reality; it only offers insight and clarity for how to organize reality in a way that is holy, moral, proper and ascending. So, yes. Jewish slaves and corrupt judges, stolen cows and lying renters - all of these remain within reality. Once we have experienced moments of realization and opening, our work is to take our new clarity and insight and bring it to bear on the world we live in, with all its problems.