Rules Even in War

Shabbat Mishpatim Sermon 5785 

Back in cowboy days, a westbound wagon train is lost and low on food. No other humans have been seen for days when they see a Jewish peddler sitting under a tree. 
The leader rushes up to him and says, "We're lost and running out of food. Is there someplace ahead where we can get food?" 


"Vell," the Jewish peddler says, "I vouldn't go up dat hill dere.  Somevun told me you'll run into a big bacon tree." 


"A bacon tree?" asks the wagon train leader.  “We’re starving!” 


"Yoh, ah bacon tree,” says the Jew.  “Trust me. For nuttin vud I lie." 


The wagon train leader goes back and tells his people that if nothing else, they might be able to find food on the other side of the next ridge.

"So why did he say not to go there?" some pioneers ask. 


"Oh, you know those Jews don't eat bacon." 


So, the wagon train goes up the hill. Suddenly, Indians attack and massacre everyone except the leader, who manages to escape back to the old Jew.

The near-dead man starts shouting. "You fool!  You sent us to our deaths! 
We followed your instructions, but there was no bacon tree. Just hundreds of Indians, who killed everyone." 


The Jewish peddler holds up his hand and says "Oy, vait a minute, vait a minute…  Gevalt, I made myself ah big mistake.  It vuz not a bacon tree. It vuz a ham bush!"   Sorry.

While sometimes here in the southwest we can get a little testy about the stereotypes of deserts and cowboys, of cactus and overgrown cowtowns we tend to have foisted upon us, occasionally we actually seek out and embrace those stereotypes.  And this is one of those times. 

In fact, the last act of the famous shootout at the OK Corral took place right here in the Tucson railyards when legendary OK Corral gunslinger, lawman Wyatt Earp gunned down the last member of the gang that killed his brother. 

Wyatt Earp’s common-law wife—his last one—was a Jewish woman named Josephine Marcus, whom he met in Tombstone.  And although you might not immediately associate Jews and cowboys, there were a number of prominent Jews in the old west. There were peddlers and merchants, but there were Jewish mayors of Tucson and Jewish sheriffs and even Jewish outlaws.  If you aren’t sure of that, go and visit Boot Hill’s Jewish cemetery in Tombstone itself; it’s not far from the main Boot Hill in Tombstone, where the victims of the OK Corral shootout are theoretically buried among other outlaws, and it has its own unique Jewish character and has both prominent Tombstone Jewish citizens and some clearly Jewish outlaws buried there, too.  

And of course, in addition to the west’s more colorful characters, there were Jewish merchants, including some of my own ancestors, the Reinharts, who had a store in the Gold Country near Auburn, California.  They sold various items including dungaree trousers there, especially the newly invented ones produced by a German Jewish entrepreneur named Levi Strauss.  I’m pretty sure some people still wear that brand.

In any case, I hope you are all enjoying this Rodeo Shabbat celebration of our superficial western-ness.  To me, Rodeo is a sign that spring has sprung here in Tucson, that we are ready to embrace a season of pleasant warmth and natural growth. 

It reminds me of our first Rodeo Shabbat as a congregation at Beit Simcha when we had our Rodeo Shabbat horseback ride and service, as we did for a couple of years.  It actually snowed the day before, and we had a magnificent panorama of white spread out around us as we rode along.  That made the Fireball Cinnamon whiskey at the kiddush after the Mincha service and ride all the more pleasurable…

Now, I must address a much more serious topic tonight, even during a somewhat silly celebration of our western heritage, and on a Shabbat when we rejoice in a great simcha, Josh’s Adult Bar Mitzvah.  But tonight we simply must address what occurred last week in Gaza and Israel. 

The complete moral depravity of the Hamas Palestinian terrorists was on full display last Wednesday as the coffins carrying the remains of four Israelis kidnapped and murdered by Hamas were returned home.  The murdered bodies of Ariel Bibas, age 4, and Kfir Bibas, age 9 months, and Oded Lifshitz, age 84, were finally returned to Israel by the Hamas Palestinian terrorists who murdered them.  A body purporting to be Shiri Bibas, 32 years old, the mother of the two little children, was returned at the same time, but after Israeli forensic analysis it proved not to be her, nor any of the known hostages.  We still don’t know what happened to her, or who the last body belonged to.

For many Israelis, the horror of the day was compounded when Hamas handed over the coffins following a macabre ceremony where the terror group paraded the black-draped coffins, each adorned with photographs of the deceased, in front of a giant poster depicting Binyamin Netanyahu as a vampire and accusing the Israeli prime minister and his “Nazi army” of allegedly killing the four in an airstrike. There remains no doubt Hamas is fully responsible for their murder and ghoulishly held their bodies as a form of psychological torture to their families and the entire nation of Israel.  Until last week Israel and Jews everywhere held out hope that this young family had survived its brutal ordeal at the hands of these terrorists.  Not so.

After the utterly evil public show, Hamas transferred the coffins of the dead hostages to the Red Cross. The coffins were locked, and the accompanying keys didn’t work.  Just when you think they have reached the bottom, it turns out that there is no level of horror to which the Palestinian terrorists will not crawl lower.  It is no surprise that they created a terror tunnel network underground: it is emblematic of their moral level.

Israelis were, of course, outraged. The callous murder of infants and young children and mothers and the elderly are all calling cards of these Hamas Palestinian terrorists, but the public display of their coffins in an enthusiastic public rally demonstrated again to the world that Hamas cannot be allowed to continue in power in Gaza, or anywhere.

Most Israelis parceled out blame for the deaths and the horrors of Hamas’ display, in part, to the Israeli government which has failed to bring them home, and which has refused to accept the obvious responsibility for failing to prevent October 7, 2023 in the first place.

The murder of infants, children, mothers and the elderly is not an accident, nor is it the fault of Netanyahu, with all his many failings.  It is the direct result of a mindset that insists that any act is justifiable if it leads to the destruction and genocide of Jews.  This is not about liberating Palestinians, or an attempt to build another Arab state in a region filled with them. It is about cultivating evil, viciousness and horror.  There is never any justification for what Hamas’ Palestinian terrorists continue to perpetrate, the brutal murder of infants, children, mothers and the elderly.  Keeping in mind how terrible this is morally, and for Israel and Jews everywhere in the world, we also must ask “How does this possibly help the Palestinian cause?”  If the net result for Palestinians in Gaza of the October 7th atrocities is, as Hamas claims, the death of nearly 50,000 people in Gaza and the destruction of much of its housing, infrastructure and businesses, what has been gained for anyone?

Even in warfare, conduct matters.  All is not fair in love and war. 

Which brings us to this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim.  In many ways, following a sequence of spectacular weekly portions, Mishpatim is highly anticlimactic.  We began reading the book of Exodus six weeks ago in Shemot with the birth of Moses, his baby journey in a basket in the bullrushes, his call from God at the Burning Bush; we continued with Moses and Aaron representing God dueling with Pharaoh in the plagues narrative in Va’eira; we had the great drama of the first Passover, the Exodus from Egypt, freedom from the long slavery in the land of oppression in the portion of Bo; we crossed the Sea of Reeds in B’Shalach, saw the walls of water open and then wash away our enemies, sang the great song of Moses at the Sea in B’shalach on Shabbat Shirah; and then last week we read of our people standing at the foot of Mt. Sinai hearing the great Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Commandments given in God’s own voice, the most powerful direct revelation in our people’s entire history, and perhaps any people’s entire history, in Yitro.  One amazing Torah portion after another…

Only to land this week on the portion of Mishpatim, a series of specific laws that govern human conduct.  How a slave must be freed, or retained, under very specific rules.  What differentiates manslaughter from murder, and the various punishments accorded to each.  What inflicting damage on a person obligates the damager to pay in restitution, including in the event of a woman having a miscarriage.  The legal responsibility for the owner of an animal that hurts people has, and how that is to be enforced.  The legal tort responsibility for leaving an open hole in the ground.  The penalty for stealing something—restitution at 4 or 5 times the value of what you steal—and your responsibility in a case of negligent use of fire to burn off trash. If you borrow something, how you must return it, and pay if you don’t.  Rules, laws, details, restrictions, etc. etc.  On and on.  Dozens and dozens of, frankly, boring laws that we human beings must follow in order to live with one another. 

That is, torts and talionises, rules and regulations, penalties and punishments.  If you like reading lawbooks for recreation, Mishpatim is for you.  But, frankly, what a deflating come down: after the brisk exhilaration of liberation from slavery, the miraculous salvation at the shores of the sea and the spiritual heights of Mt. Sinai we crash down into a long series of detailed rules about lending money, marriage contracts, gossip and slander.

Isn’t religion supposed to inspire us towards spiritual growth?  How do rules about lost animals or torn clothing do that?

And yet, Judaism is a unique sort of religion.  While we are given great, high moral principles and inspiring stories of miraculous redemption, we are never just given those.  If we are commanded, as we were in last week’s Torah portion, to be “kingdom of priests and a holy people,” the Torah always follows up by telling us how we are to do just that, often in great detail, as in Mishpatim.  If we are commanded to be a unique nation, an am segulah, that idea is always explained in terms of what this requires us to do in order to be considered special. 

So it is with Mishpatim.  It is not sufficient to say, “treat the immigrant and the stranger among you with generosity and respect, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt”, Mishpatim also explains that we must make certain the immigrant and the stranger have enough to eat, that they are housed, that they are treated under the law with the same consideration as the born Israelite—you know, the birthright citizen.  When we are told that poor and rich alike must be treated equally under the law, that no one is above the law, Mishpatim becomes extremely specific: do not favor the poor in your decisions, nor shall you favor the rich or powerful.  The law must be followed in order to have a good society and to please God.  No one, including the leaders of the people, are to be treated as though these laws apply only to others; they are always universal. The rule of the law is the only way for justice to prevail, the highest principle in all of Judaism.

It is in Mishpatim that we see one of the fascinating rules that has application today, during this same Gaza War.  “If you see the donkey of someone you hate lying under its burden, and you refrain from helping him—help, you must certainly help him.” (Exodus 23:5) That is, not just the animal of a strangers, or someone you don’t have a relationship with: you must help with the animal of someone you actually hate or despise. 

Certainly, there is hatred enough to go around after October 7th, 2023.  Israelis, and most Jews, feel genuine hatred towards Hamas for the deliberate and horrifying cruelties they inflicted that day, and for the subsequent horrors Palestinian terrorists perpetrated on the hostages they captured and tortured.  Just as surely, hatred motivated the Hamas Palestinian terrorists to perform these bestial acts, and hatred for Israel is widespread in Gaza as this brutal war continues in its 17th month. 

In keeping with the laws established here in Mishpatim, obligating us to lift up our enemy’s animal, Israel has provided electricity, water, food supplies and medical supplies to Gaza civilians, and allowed aid agencies to do so throughout this war.  The widespread famine that we were told was sure to come to Gaza over a year ago has not arrived, because Israel has continued to protect civilians in Gaza as well as it is able.

Similarly, the Israeli Army holds to a quite specific Tohorat HaNeshek, a doctrine of the purity of arms.  In war, soldiers cross the line at times.  It is noteworthy that Israeli soldiers have been put on trial and convicted for mistreating prisoners during this Gaza War, and are now themselves imprisoned.  It is not most Israeli soldiers; it is not, in fact, many who act in this way.  But those who do are punished for doing so by their own army.

We saw something quite different from the Hamas Palestinians last week.  Our distress at witnessing such deliberate cruelty is real.  This is the kind of act that can only be called a war crime, and which serves no military purpose, but instead is part of a malign desire to inflict senseless pain. 

War is terrible.  But as Israel surely knows, the Mishpatim that are such a central part of Jewish tradition are designed to keep us, even in times of great trauma, within the boundaries of decency and goodness.  Even in war—perhaps especially so—we must act effectively but within the boundaries of humanity, within the Mishpatim.  We don’t do this for our enemies.  We do it for ourselves.  We do it so that we retain our own humanity, preserve the tzelem Elohim, the image of God, in which we are created.  We do it because it is right, and Jewish.

And, similarly, if we can do things like this in our own lives, observe the practical ways to build holiness in our world, we will retain our character and deserve to be a holy people, an am segulah.  If we take care of the poor, protect the stranger and the immigrant, open our hands to the needy, we have a chance to build a society of true justice, worthy of our God and our people.  

Kein Yehi Ratson; may this be God’s will, and more especially, ours.