Weekly D'var

Mishpatim
Teddy Gutstein
February 22, 2025

Shabbat Shalom, it is good to be back up here. 

In Parshat Mishpatim we encounter so many laws. The first five aliyot consist of God speaking these laws to Moshe—laws covering all sorts of situations. Some are notable, such as those concerning capital punishment. A person could be sentenced to death for murder, striking their parents, kidnapping and selling someone, sacrificing to an idol, or harming a widow or orphan. But there are also some unusual cases, like if two people are fighting and they accidentally collide with a pregnant woman, causing her death. Or if someone owns a work-bull with a known history of aggression, and after injuring multiple people, it kills someone—the owner bears responsibility. This is also the parsha where we hear “An eye for an eye.” 

This long set of rules lays the foundation for the ethical and legal system of the Torah, and this concept left me scratching my head:  

When God recites all these rules to Moshe, Moshe then recites all of those laws back again to the children of Israel. They then say, “Naaseh v'nishma.” We will do and we will hear. Shouldn’t it be nishma vnaaseh? We will hear and then we will do? Don’t we need to hear first so we can have some kind of understanding of what we are doing? This wording didn’t make sense to me at first.

What I want to share with you this morning, is how to figure out a satisfactory answer to why it’s naaseh v nishmah, I actually had to look to another troubling aspect of the parsha, an eye for eye.

But first, I looked up what the Rabbis said why does the Torah says naaseh and then nishma:

Rashbam (Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir), the grandson of Rashi, says that Naaseh V’Nishmah means, “We will carry out what God has said already, and we are also prepared to listen or obey to what God will command from here on in.” Rashbam understands “naaseh” to mean obeying the current laws and “nishmah” to mean listening to any future laws Hashem might make. There is nothing about understanding, it’s blind faith.

Rabbi Abraham Issac HaKook, or Rav Kook, the famous Chief Rabbi of Israel, wrote that since the people had received the 10 commandments at Sinai with such awe, they had “attained a sublime level of natural purity, and intuitively proclaimed, ‘We will do.’ ‘We will follow our natural essence, unhindered by any spurious, artificial conventions.’” HaRav Kook focused on the naaseh, that the people were so moved by the awesome experience they had, that they could only do. I think this explanation also makes sense, but what about the nishma part? I get that there was an overwhelming instinct to proclaim, “we will do” because of the incredible situation, but this answer, like Rashbam’s left me wanting.

So, I actually found a satisfactory explanation to my issue with Naaseh V’ Nishmah when I went looking to understand another troubling aspect of this parsha: An Eye for An Eye. I know this might sound like wandering, but Torah is a journey, so stick with me. 

Now – in one part the Torah talks about the situation where men are fighting, collide with a pregnant woman and she miscarries. There would be some kind of financial punishment, but if there is a fatality, “Then you should award a life for a life; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise.” Eiyin Tachat Eiyin, an eye for an eye. what does Eye for Eye have to do with helping me make peace with Naaseh v'nishma?

It’s about…looking beneath the surface of the literal meaning and trying to decipher it for yourself.

In Gemara Bava Kamma, the rabbis talk about how an eye for an eye is not physical retaliation but rather monetary compensation. They argue - and I agree - that the eye for an eye part is too literal, and would not make sense in all situations. 

Rabbi Dosthai ben Judah and Shimon bar Yochai bring up this point - saying Eye for an eye means “pecuniary compensation.” Rabbi ben Judah mentions how eyes could be unequal in size, meaning this eye for an eye is not in fact equal or just. Shimon Bar Yochai brings up the situation of a blind man. What if he knocks out your eyes? It won’t be a fair trade, because he is already blind and this law would not affect him. So, the sages come to the conclusion that monetary compensation is needed. We need to look beyond the literal and interpret. 

I also went to a more modern authority on legal and rabbinical matters, my grandfather. He explained to me, and I know he will explain to you, that an eye for an eye was a revolutionary law, a radical stand saying an eye of the nobility is equal to the eye of the poor. When there is a crime against someone, it is blind to class or wealth. (pardon the pun) From this perspective, monetary damages are the most effective way to maintain this equal justice. Pop Pop gives the basis for the Rabbis teaching this is not a law of retribution. And this explanation makes sense to me.

Pop Pop shows how different an interpretation of this concept was from before. Tracing it back to one of the first civilizations, in Ancient Babylon, the people there followed the Code of Hammurabi - laws to dictate life. The “Eye for an Eye” concept appears there, except the only difference is the people in that civilization actually followed through with it. Situations like the ones the Rabbis talked about with eyes of unequal size or a blind person being one of the affected parties may have arisen, but it didn’t matter. The Assyrians did the same thing, with their “Middle Assyrian Laws” that punished the offender with the exact same crime as the victim received. 

In contrast, the Jewish system calls on us to interpret sometimes, not following it exactly as it is written, even though our texts look the same.

So now - going back to the original question - why would the Torah order Naaseh v'Nishma in that way? Why wouldn’t it be Nishma vNaaseh? 

I realize that we Jews are a people who don’t take anything at face value. We can see this with the pages and pages of critical analysis of our holy text, and we can see it in the conversations upstairs at the kiddush tables. Just as we stopped and said, wait, it can't really be a literal eye for another eye, that doesn’t make sense and can contribute to an unjust system. 

Applying that same thinking here, Naaseh v'Nishma stays. It’s not Naaseh v’Az Nishma, meaning We will do and then we will hear/understand, and it isn’t Naaseh Mah’Nishma we will do because we understand, it is the fact that we will do and we will understand, Naaseh Veh’Nishma. Both at the same time. 

Those laws about murder and sentencing someone to death in the beginning of my talk? Those are the Naaseh laws - the laws that are very clear cut and easy to understand just because of their specificity. We just do those. The other laws - the Nishma laws - are the ones that are there for our interpretation. We wrestle with what those mean. It’s all Torah M’Sinai, it’s Jewish, to look beyond the physical or literal and to do and hear at the same time. We Jews are thinkers, and questioners, and we look beyond the surface, and we frequently don’t arrive at the same answer.  And that’s a good thing.

Good Shabbos.