D'var Torah - Mishpatim – The honor of work

After the spiritually sublime experience of Matan Torah (the Giving of the Torah), the very next Torah portion, Mishpatim, deals with Jewish civil law.  The implication being that Jewish spirituality is achieved by ‘just’ relations between man and his fellow.  Closeness to Hashem can be attained by appropriate ethical mundane behavior.  

In articulating the various laws appropriate between man and his fellow the Torah relates (chapter 22, verse 37) the law for one who steals an ox or a sheep and sells it or slaughters it.  The thief is punished with a payment of 4 times the value for the sheep and five times the value for the ox.  Rashi in his commentary elaborates on a tanaic (talmudic) dispute between Rabbi Yochanan ben Zachai and Rabbi Meyer, on the reason for the disparaging payments for the thief.  Rabbi Yochanan, explains that Hashem is worried about mans honor.  Since a sheep is small animal, the thief will have to carry the animal on his shoulders when he steals it, and hence he is embarrassed by this action and is only fined 4 times payment instead of the normal five times for the thief that steals a bull which walks on its own, which does not disgrace the thief at all.  We see that Hashem pities even the compassionless thief.

Rabbi Baruch A. Plotkin

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