Empty Offers

A short reflection on Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18)

Have you ever thought about laws prior to the writing of the Torah?  

In those days, if someone stole a possession from someone else, punishment was not based upon what was taken but upon the station of the victim.  If you stole from a king, your punishment would be much greater than if you stole from a peasant. And, if you couldn’t make restitution, you were typically put to death.  Best not to steal your king’s cow if you wanted to avoid being put to death. 

The Torah changed a class based system of punishment. Punishments were the same no matter the status of the victim. This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, speaks about laws and punishments.  The Torah teaches us that if someone accidentally destroys your property, restitution is typically equivalent to the damage.  But, if someone steals from you the punishment is minimally double the cost of the damage. Exodus 22:3 states:  If the theft shall be found in his hand – whether a live ox or donkey or lamb – he shall pay double.  

It seems that if your goal was to steal a person’s cow so you could add one to your herd, your punishment would be having to increase your victim’s herd by one cow.  You’d return the cow you stole and then give at least one extra.  You have to give away what you had hoped to gain and then make some level of restitution which would also constitute your punishment.  

A few hundred years after the Torah was codified, the rabbis got together and came up with another category of theft – goanev da’at habriyot – stealing the mind of other people (Tosefta Bava Kamma chapter 7).  While this might conjure up images of the body snatchers or headhunters, it was not what they were referring to.  They were referring to empty offers and fulfilling commitments by NOT fulfilling them.   

How do you fulfill a commitment by not fulfilling it? Examples of this would be: 

• inviting someone out to eat on a day when you know they can’t make it
• or returning someone’s call when you know they can’t answer the phone
• or offering to pick up the tab when you know they paid the bill in advance. 

How many of us have made an empty offer knowing that we would never have to actually fulfill it? Let’s admit it, we all have. The Rabbis moved the idea of theft away from an agricultural society to a non-agricultural one.  They took laws meant for physical objects and moved them to the realm of the philosophical and personal.  They deepened the intent of the law. Theft of any type was wrong. These tricks of empty offers, were in fact theft. 

While the Torah views theft in its simplest form, the rabbis took it a step further. They changed the idea of theft in order to make us reflect on our words, offers and actions. We need to remember that we can be thieves even when we have not stolen a physical object, and, often, empty gestures are greater forms of theft than stealing someone’s favorite possession. 

MISHPATIM SUMMARY FROM THE URJ

• Interpersonal laws ranging from the treatment of slaves to the exhibition of kindness to strangers are listed. (21:1-23:9)
• Cultic laws follow, including the commandment to observe the Sabbatical Year, a repetition of the Sabbath injunction, the first mention of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, rules of sacrificial offerings, and the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk. (23:10-19)
• The people assent to the covenant. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascend the mountain and see God. Moses goes on alone and spends forty days on the mountain. (24:1-18)

For more on this Torah portion from the URJ go to: https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/mishpatim