Exodus 21:1-24:18<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Parsha Mishpatim is one of the most central ones in the Torah as it sets many rules for Jewish people, including legal, moral and behavioral ones. 53 of 613 mitzvot are narrated in this parsha alone. Such a substantial influx of moral and legal teaching is transferred to Jewish people in a certain moment, the moment of giving them the Torah and its laws, the blue-print for life for the observant Jews. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two ways of perception of knowledge and ordinances it contains: one\u2019s own level and preparedness to get it, or the trust and belief at the level which will accommodate this incoming knowledge and its ordinance, allowing a person to accommodate it, to get the deeper understanding of it gradually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Moses belonged to the first category, he was spiritually ready to perceive the Torah and its ordinances. Many other people who left Egypt under his leadership, needed more time not just to accept it, but to understand it, to rationalise it. It is only natural and does correspond both to the psychological dimension of human life and behaviour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this parsha, the Creator also promises to bring the Children of Israel to the Holy Land, and it is a fundamental moment in Jewish perception of the world and their place in it, in all following generations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In his The Way of People of Israel, Michael created the metaphor of this promise. The metaphor eclipses at the moment of this entering, very much including people’s spiritual and mental preparedness and willingness. Due to its idea and the way of its relaying, the work is special, it is magnetic, and it creates a physical, optical impression of getting into the space depicted in the work. It also expresses the message which is actual at any given time. The Tablets, the top is The Book of the Covenant, the beginning of our knowledge about ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Rogatchi (C). The Way of the People of Israel. Soul Talks. Indian ink, oil pastel on dark-blue hand-made cotton paper. 40 x 60 cm. 2016. Private collection. London, UK – Jerusalem, Israel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same parsha, the Creator also ordains the holidays for Jewish people , with providing insights into all of them according to the seasonal schedule. It also includes the seventh year, Shmitta, set for the rest of the plants, big and small. The Children of Israel yet before entering the Holy Land, are instructed with all basic laws of cultivating the land in the best possible way of nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In his lovely sketch The Gifts ( 2018), Michael brings many of the gifts to the observant Jews\u2019 lives in generations, which were ordained by the Creator at the moment described in the parsha Mishpatim. And from that time onward, it still be with us providing us joy and ever-existing connection to the Land of Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Rogatchi \u00a9. The Gifts. Pencil on cotton paper. 30 x 40 cm. 2018. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to 53 of 613 mitzvot that were given to the Children of Israel at the same time at the Mountain Sinai premises, what always fascinated me is the multi-dimensional meaning of the rules. In many of those as if very practical ordinances, there is a clear presence of strong moral dimension behind it. The dimension which provides a moral exponent of human attitude which is far wider than certain acts. Do help the animal of your enemy. Do cover the pit on the road. Do not take a bribe, metaphorically too, to prevent your own corruption. Distance yourself from falsehood, not even listen to false statements, be immune to it per definition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many ordinances listed in this parsha lay a very strong ground for the main principle of fairness as the backbone of decent living, including the principle not to follow the majority to do evil, the one of the clearest and absolutely important ordinances for human behaviour, both individual and en masse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ordinances from the parsha Mishpatim also are very clear warnings against pre-justice in principle, as the way of ill behaviour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, the ordinances are set to prepare the people to behave justly and be guided by the principle of fairness. It sets up a very clear moral pre-disposition to life in all, big and small. If only people would follow these clear ordinances, both then and now. How different life could have been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The process of giving\u00a0 and teaching the Children of Israel in the parsha Mishpatim culminates in the ordering Moses to ascend Mount Sinai for receiving the Torah, the law of life. It was expected to be a crucial moment in the formation of the Jews as a nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The timing of Moses being at this summit in all senses is not occasional either. Forty days and forty nights is the time for the human embryo to be formed. This is an essential meaning in this period of time in the process of formation of \u2018an embryo\u2019 of the Jewish consciousness in the aspect of an ability to perceive the ideas of the faith and the corresponding picture of the world. Importantly, according to Rashi and some other top rabbinic sources, every time when Moses went up to the mountain to have that prescribed and absolutely necessary audience with the Creator, there was always the same period of time, forty days and forty nights.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n With Moses to write the Book of Covenant as the Creator would proclaim it to him – and him only, because at the moment, Moses was the only human being in the spiritual condition sufficient to be able to perceive what he had been communicated by the Highest Force and Supreme Intelligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The purpose of giving the Book of the Covenant which is the text of the Torah as we know it from the Bereishit until the Mishpatim chapter was to prepare the six hundred and sixty thousand of Jews on their way from Egypt to enter the Land of Israel, both physically and psychologically, both literally and metaphorically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mishpatim – Ordinances Exodus 21:1-24:18 Parsha Mishpatim is one of the most central ones in the Torah as it sets many rules for Jewish people, including legal, moral and behavioral ones. 53 of 613 mitzvot are narrated in this parsha alone. Such a substantial influx of moral and legal teaching is transferred to Jewish people … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.innarogatchi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-2-1024x442.jpeg\")
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