Dvar Torah - Mishpatim

This morning (I write this missive on Wednesday), the news came out that Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas' bodies will be returned by Hamas tomorrow. This calamitous announcement struck the Jewish world like a meteor. For fifteen months, we have prayed and waited for their safe return. Though Hamas had announced that they were already dead, and cruelly told Yarden Bibas of his family's demise on camera and released the video as "proof of life," hope springs eternal. Even now, part of me hopes they will be released alive, though I know that is probably futile.How are we to understand this event? So many icons of that terrible day in 2023 have been murdered. So many became famous as abductees, and subsequently, we found out that they had not survived. Daniel Perez. Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Now Shiri, Ariel and Kfir. The pain feels raw all over again. It feels like too much.I want to reflect on how I see this war. Why did we respond to Hamas's evil by going to war? To save people. We understood that we must save as many of these innocent people as possible. We understood that we would have to fight to save them, and many were saved. We understood, through our pain, that we must fight to ensure that this can never happen again. And so Israel went to war, reluctantly, in response to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.Where does this instinctive ethic come from? Why is it that when everyone told us that we must hold back, that we must "be restrained" and "not allow our anger to dictate our actions," we acted decisively to extract as many hostages as possible? Why is it that now, after fifteen months of brutal conflict, we make peace to get those who we still can out alive? The answer lies at the beginning of our national story, at the giving of the Torah.This week's parsha begins with the words: "And these are the laws you will place before them." Rashi notices something small and anomalous. Why does the Torah use the conjunction "and" at the beginning of this sentence? He explains that we should understand that just as Hashem gave us the Ten Commandments and the order to build an altar of earth on Mount Sinai, so too these mitzvot. These mitzvot focus on our obligations to other Jews and our commitment to creating a fair society. That is just as important (perhaps more important) as the command to build an altar and bring sacrifices on it.However, there is more that we can learn from the order of the Torah's words. The first mitzvah the Torah records this week is the command to look after our Hebrew servants. The Torah instructs us that if a Jew comes into indentured servitude with us, we must treat them well. We must ensure that they are not overworked, that their family is cared for, and that after six years, they go free, no matter the sum paid or the reason for the servitude. In the meantime, they must be treated like a family member. The Torah tells us to act in this unusual fashion because it treats a temporary servitude differently from the regnant theories in the ancient Near East (or today). Most of the time, we take the perspective that if someone has an obligation, they must pay it. If they are unable to, they should be made to do so. The servitude exists to discharge that debt. The Torah sees it as something different. It sees this as the opportunity to give someone vulnerable a new chance of gainful employment. They can work productively; ultimately, they must go free with enough resources to rebuild their lives. The Torah's ethic is that even when someone has made terrible and injurious choices, they should not suffer neglect. We still must look after them.This carries on throughout the parsha, the Torah, and Jewish life. At the very outset of the Jewish experience, the Torah instructs us that every Jew is our responsibility and must look out for each other. This was the founding rationale for the State of Israel and remains in force today. The bitter news about the Bibas family strikes hard because we couldn't help them. We failed in our obligation to them, and tragedy resulted.We have a long journey before us to secure the release of the rest of the hostages. It is a road that will likely see more loss. However, we must always remember why Israel exists and what our most foundational obligations are as Jews. We help each other. There is no other way.