FEBRUARY 15 • 2024 | 61

even when making economic 
decisions we frequently mis-
calculate their effects and fail 
to recognize our motivations, 
a finding for which Kahneman 
won the Nobel Prize.
How then do you stop 
people doing harmful 
things without taking away 
their freedom? Thaler and 
Sunstein’s answer is that there 
are oblique ways in which 
you can influence people. In 
a cafeteria, for example, you 
can put healthy food at eye 
level and junk food in a more 
inaccessible and less noticeable 
place. You can subtly adjust 
what they call people’s “choice 
architecture.
”
That is exactly what God 
does in the case of slavery. He 
does not abolish it, but He 
so circumscribes it that He 
sets in motion a process that 
will foreseeably lead people 
to abandon it of their own 
accord, although it may take 
many centuries.
A Hebrew slave is to go free 
after six years. If the slave has 
grown so used to his condition 
that he wishes not to go free, 
then he is required to under-
go a stigmatizing ceremony, 
having his ear pierced, which 
thereafter remains as a visible 
sign of shame. Every Shabbat, 
slaves cannot be forced to 
work. All these stipulations 
have the effect of turning slav-
ery from a lifelong fate into 
a temporary condition, and 
one that is perceived to be a 
humiliation rather than some-

thing written indelibly into the 
human script.
Why choose this way of 
doing things? Because people 
must freely choose to abolish 
slavery if they are to be free at 
all. It took the reign of terror 
after the French Revolution 
to show how wrong Rousseau 
was when he wrote in The 
Social Contract that, if 
necessary, people have to be 
forced to be free. That is a 
contradiction in terms, and it 
led, in the title of J.L. Talmon’s 
great book on the thinking 
behind the French Revolution, 
to totalitarian democracy.
God can change nature, 
said Maimonides, but He 
cannot, or chooses not to, 
change human nature, pre-
cisely because Judaism is built 
on the principle of human 
freedom. So, He could not 
abolish slavery overnight, but 
He could change our choice 
architecture, or in plain words, 
give us a nudge, signaling that 
slavery is wrong but that we 
must be the ones to abolish it, 
in our own time, through our 
own understanding. It took a 
very long time indeed, and in 
America, not without a civil 
war. But it happened.
There are some issues on 
which God gives us a nudge. 
The rest is up to us. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 

served as the chief rabbi of the 

United Hebrew Congregations of the 

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to all at 

rabbisacks.org. 

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. Can you think of examples in your life where 

“choice architecture” influences your own decisions? 

2. In what ways do you think God “nudges” us toward 
certain paths? Can you think of any other time in the Torah when 

God guided B’nei Yisrael towards a certain moral choice?

3. If you could create a new rule for everyone to follow, 
what would it be, and why?

It Is All in the Details
S

tanding at the foot of 
Mount Sinai, the Jewish 
people saw Divinity 
with their own eyes. 
In last week’s Torah portion, 
we read of the wonders of that 
event. We might have expected 
that after such a revela-
tion, the Torah would 
concern itself with lofty, 
spiritual matters. Instead, 
the Torah concerns itself 
in this week’s parshah, 
Mishpatim, with legali-
ties, including laws of ser-
vants and maidservants, 
cases of one man striking 
another and theft.
Surely there was a need 
to deal with various laws. 
After all, it’s reasonable to 
assume that after the rev-
elation at Sinai, practical ques-
tions began to arise that had to 
be answered, even if they were 
relatively insignificant. However, 
an examination of Mishpatim 
reveals that it mostly deals with 
matters that, though practical, 
do not generally come up in the 
reality of life in the wilderness. 
The context of Mishpatim 
is obviously that of a people 
leading a normal life, having 
servants and maidservants, 
cultivating fields and vineyards. 
We must say that after the 
revelation at Sinai, the most 
important laws for the people of 
Israel to learn — before the laws 
of korbanot, before the laws of 
the Sanctuary, and even before 
“Shema Yisrael” — are laws 
regarding the most detailed and 
earthly matters, like how to treat 
one’s servant or one’s donkey.
So why is such great impor-
tance attached to the mundane 
matters within Jewish law?
The answer is that our lives 
do not take place in the Temple 
and do not revolve around the 

various daily korbanot. We live 
at home and in the marketplace, 
in the field and in the vine-
yard, with all the small details 
and problems that life entails. 
Because this is the reality of our 
lives, these are the issues that 
the parshah deals with.
Contrary to what we 
may think, the most 
exalted things can be 
found not above, but 
below. As we read in 
Psalms, “Hashem is 
exalted above all nations, 
His glory is upon the 
heavens. Who is like 
Hashem our Lord, who 
is enthroned on high, 
who sees what is below, 
in heaven and on earth?” 
The other nations believe 
in Hashem as well, but they 
take the opposite perspective. 
They say that “Hashem is 
exalted above all nations” only 
when “His glory is upon the 
heavens.
” Hashem is higher than 
other nations think and that is 
precisely why He “sees what is 
below, in heaven and on earth.
” 
He can reveal Himself equally 
in heaven and on earth, even in 
the smallest earthly details.
After Sinai, after the people 
look heavenward and see the 
thunder and the lightning 
and the smoke, comes the real 
revelation, the one that truly 
touches upon the most exalted 
of all. Mishpatim demonstrates 
that exaltedness may be found 
in the earthly details, details that 
transcend the generation of the 
wilderness to impact upon the 
most distant generations, even 
to this day. 

Rabbi Bentzion Geisinsky lives in 

Bloomfield Hills, where he co-directs 

Chabad of Bingham Farms with his 

wife, Moussia.

SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION

Rabbi Bentzi 
Geisinsky

Parshat 

Mishpatim: 

Exodus 

25:127:19; 

I Kings 5:26-

6:13.

