Parshat Mishpatim Rabbi Chaim Brovender

Toward the end of the parasha, Moshe receives a directive from Hashem.

"Go up to Hashem…" (24:1).

Rashi has a definitive opinion about the order of things in the past few Parshiot: "This passage was said before the Ten Commandments. On the fourth day of Sivan, Moshe was told "Go up to Hashem".

As we have pointed out on several occasions, Rashi accepts the position that the order in the Torah is not necessarily chronological. However, the general order of the Torah certainly follows a reasonable order: the exodus precedes the salvation at Yam Suf, which precedes the giving of the Torah, which precedes the building of the Tabernacle, etc. However, at times the chronology does not seem to be the only principle at work in determining the sequencing of events in the Torah.

In our case, Rashi denies the chronology implied by the sequence. Rashi does not offer a reason for the change. It is not necessary to explain why the phenomenon occurs where it does because this is not a problem of pshat. Once there is a principle that chronology is not primary, the basic problem has been done away with and further interpretation is not Rashi's issue. However, closer scrutiny of the verses might give us a direction for interpretation.

Note the subsequent verse: "Moshe told the people all the words of Hashem…" (24: 3).

Apparently, before going up the mountain to accept the entire Torah, Moshe taught parts of the Torah that he knew to the people so that their acceptance would not be entirely speculative. They had an example of actual Torah that they were going to relate to in their acceptance.

This is then followed by a curious event: "Moshe wrote the words of Hashem…" (24: 4). Rashi explains: "the text of the Torah from Bresheit, until the giving of the Torah, and he included those commandments that they were commanded in Marah".

According to Rashi, Moshe actually wrote the Torah (part of it) before the event called "giving of the Torah". This written Torah contained two parts: a non-halachic part with the (already known?) stories of the avot and also some halachot that the people learned after they had left the bondage of Egypt. This written Torah was similar to the complete Torah in that it contained both literary-historical parts and halachot.

Rashi does not explain this point. Why was it not sufficient that Moshe explain the Torah to them orally? What was it that made this act of writing necessary? The question has a particular force because Moshe receives no specific command to write. Hashem told Moshe to teach. The teaching was successful as we read previously: "…And the entire people responded with one voice and they said ‘all the words that Hashem has spoken we will do’”(24: 3).

On the other hand, it is true that the people’s acceptance of the Torah after Moshe wrote it was even more emphatic. Later we read: "He took the book of the covenant and read it to the people, and they responded "Anything that Hashem has spoken, we will do and we will obey" (24: 7). The later incident includes the famous double language: "do" and also "obey". This is a more far-reaching acceptance than the first which was only: "All the words that Hashem has spoken we will do" (24: 3).

Rashi does not comment and try to explain the difference in the responses or the connection between the writing of the words and the various responses.

There is another example of the writing of the Torah which is prior to the case that we are concerned with.

After the war with Amalek, Hashem says to Moshe, "write this as a remembrance in the book, and recite it in the ears of Yehoshua, because I shall surely wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens" (17: 14).

Rashi explains: “Moshe is instructed to tell Yehoshua of the war on Amalek; he should command Yisrael to pay Amalek its due".

It was at this point that the people learned that there are commands that last forever, obligations that must be fulfilled in all generations. The sign of such a command is that it is written down and becomes part of the book called Torah. This was the lesson learned after the war with Amalek.

Moshe wanted the people to respond to the commandments that they had learned, and they did so when the said "we will do". However when Moshe wrote the words in the book the people responded to the timeless nature of the command: "we will do and we will obey".

Gut shabbos,
Chaim Brovender

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