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.