On Mount Sinai

Last week we read in the Torah parashat Yitro, whose main theme was the Giving of the Torah. This week we read parashat Mishpatim – laws, whose general content is a long list of laws governing behavior and coexistence in society (loans, theft, damages, wages, etc.). Most of the mitzvot that appear in this section are matters of reason. However, the Torah brings them together with the Giving of the Torah, and adds a unifying element.

The section begins “Y These are the laws,” with an “and” linking it to the previous section. Regarding this, Rashi, one of the principal commentators, says: “Just as the first [laws, of the Ten Commandments,] were given at Mount Sinai, so are these (of Mishpatim),” meaning we should not think that we must observe these rational precepts because we understand them, but because they were given by God at Mount Sinai.

A deeper analysis indicates that Rashi is actually saying that the very fact that we can understand these precepts was given at Mount Sinai. If God had not determined that these precepts should be understandable, we would not be able to understand them, nor would we have come to understand their importance in fulfilling them.

While the Talmud says that “If the Torah had not been given, we would have learned modesty from the cat and not to steal from the ant,” this means that, after God put in the heart of man the need for these precepts of coexistence, we can arrive at them with our own intellect, but, otherwise, they would never have occurred to us, or we would have come up with opposing ideas (that it is okay to steal, kill, etc.).

This leads us to say that there are two types of precepts: 1) precepts that express the irrationality of the Mitzvot, and therefore we cannot understand them, and 2) precepts that express how God's will was invested in the human intellect, to the point that man can understand them. Even so, these precepts arise from the divine will.

Since the Torah is the blueprint of creation, from the moment God establishes in the Torah that some Mitzvot are understandable to the human intellect, it automatically becomes the nature of the intellect to understand them.

In fact, this is the foundation of observing the commandments, which are divine, irrational commandments that must be observed because they are God's will. The difference between the mitzvot is that some must be observed with a feeling of complete submission to God (those that are revealedly irrational), while others must be observed with an intellectual understanding of their usefulness and importance. Even so, the very ability to understand them originates "from Mount Sinai.".