Exodus Seeing Beneath the Surface
Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18)
The first piece of Talmud I ever learned within the Talmud itself was the 8th Chapter of Tractate Bava Kamma (Perek HaHovel.) Within this chapter are the laws and regulations surrounding personal injury. What happens if you are, God forbid, blinded by someone? What about breaking someone’s leg? How are damages assessed? In what areas is the assailant liable?
This was a fascinating, albeit daunting chapter to kick-off serious Talmud study. This is what the rabbis were arguing about all day?! It’s so…practical, yet the process is so foreign.
Early on in the discussion, the Talmud asks a boilerplate question: Why would the assailant pay any money to the injured party? Don’t we know that the Torah in Exodus, Parashat Mishpatim, speaks not about money but about bodily compensation?
עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן שֵׁן תַּחַת שֵׁן יָד תַּחַת יָד רֶגֶל תַּחַת רָגֶל׃ כְּוִיָּה תַּחַת כְּוִיָּה פֶּצַע תַּחַת פָּצַע חַבּוּרָה תַּחַת חַבּוּרָה׃
“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (Exodus 21:24-25).
As a first-time reader of this text, I remember thinking, “the Talmud isn’t going to suggest we actually carry out this verse, is it?” The answer to that question turned out to be no. Through many intricate forms of rabbinic exegesis, the Talmud claims that this text should actually be understood as referring to monetary compensation from the outset, not literal limb dismemberment.
This was a difficult thought for me to comprehend as a fresh reader. The Torah literally says, “eye for eye, hand for hand etc.,” how could one not read it literally? What I saw, clear as day – a demand from the Torah to punish assailants in an extreme, eye for an eye manner, was seen by the Talmud in the opposite way. Not only is there not bodily punishment, there is monetary compensation, which I didn’t see anywhere in the Torah text!
This, I learned, is how we Jews read text. And it has been an important lesson to me that has extended far beyond the Torah. Understanding something faithfully requires a deeper level of literalism than simply the text itself. What is the context? What comes before? After? What is in concert with the rest of the Torah and what is dissonant? Literalism is actually anything but.
When something seems discordant or untenable, the Talmud teaches us to look deeper. To not settle on literalism but instead to consider every vector. Later in Parashat Mishpatim, we meet another text that demands we move past the surface. “Keep far from a false charge; do not bring death on those who are innocent and in the right, for I will not acquit the wrongdoer (Exodus 23:7). Careless judgement has catastrophic consequences. When we are in a position to judge, we’re asked to consider an individual fully. To gain a complete picture. To dan l’chaf z’chut, to judge favorably.
The rabbis do not deny the existence of harsh words in the Torah like an eye for an eye. Instead, they refuse to read it in a way that flattens human existence and produces a system of cruelty, even toward wrongdoers! Instead, they read it in conversation with the broader world of Parashat Mishpatim—a world that values responsibility over vengeance, justice over bribery, truth over falsehoods, and dignity over spectacle.
Rabbi Max Edwards was ordained at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in 2021, where he also received an MJED. He is the Associate Rabbi at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, NJ.
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