Parashat Mishpatimפָּרָשַׁת מִשְׁפָּטִים

Mishpatim (“Laws”) recounts a series of God’s laws that Moses gives to the Israelites. These include laws about treatment of slaves, damages, loans, returning lost property, the Sabbath, the sabbatical year, holidays, and destroying idolatry. The portion ends as Moses ascends Mount Sinai for 40 days. Coming directly after the revelation at Sinai, Mishpatim ("Laws/Ordinances") shifts from the heights of the Ten Commandments to the practical legal and moral framework of a just society, a body of legislation scholars call the Covenant Code or Book of the Covenant. Beyond the civil and criminal laws of servitude, damages, and liability, the portion is distinguished by its insistence on social justice: it repeatedly commands kind treatment of the stranger ("for you were strangers in the land of Egypt"), the widow, the orphan, and the poor, and forbids bribery and the perversion of justice. It weaves ethical monotheism into daily life through the Sabbath, the sabbatical (shmita) year, and the three pilgrimage festivals. The portion culminates in a covenant ceremony in which Israel formally accepts the law and Moses ascends Mount Sinai, translating divine revelation into a concrete, enforceable order and presenting Judaism as a religion of just action.

In most communities the Haftarah for Mishpatim is Jeremiah 34:8-22, followed by Jeremiah 33:25-26, and this same reading is used in both Ashkenazi and Sephardi rites without the divergence found in some other portions. The thematic link is the law opening the parashah, the release of Hebrew slaves (Exodus 21:1-6). Jeremiah recounts how, during Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem, King Zedekiah and the people covenanted to free their Hebrew slaves as the Torah commands, then reneged once the siege temporarily lifted; the prophet condemns this betrayal and warns of Jerusalem's fall. The reading is often noted for closing by reverting to two earlier verses (33:25-26) so it ends on God's promise of consolation rather than destruction. When Mishpatim coincides with a special Shabbat, such as Shabbat Shekalim (II Kings 12) or Shabbat Machar Chodesh (I Samuel 20), that Shabbat's haftarah is read instead.

Mishpatim's most celebrated passage is "na'aseh v'nishma" ("We will do and we will hear," Exodus 24:7), Israel's acceptance of the covenant by pledging to act before fully understanding; the Talmud (Shabbat 88a) praises this as angelic faith and it is widely cited as encapsulating Judaism as a religion of action. The portion also contains the famous principle "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (Exodus 21:24), which Jewish tradition interprets as monetary compensation rather than literal retaliation. It is the scriptural source of the thrice-repeated prohibition "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" (Exodus 23:19), a foundation for the laws separating meat and milk, and it repeatedly enjoins compassion for the stranger, widow, and orphan. The reading closes with the dramatic "blood of the covenant" ceremony and Moses ascending Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights.