This week we read parshas Mishpotim, that discusses
many of the basic laws that govern the business of society.
This essay discusses the importance of these laws, and their
place in Torah and a Torah society.
A Study That Develops Intelligence
"Someone who wants to become wise should study dinei
momonos' (Bovo Basra 175b). This is because
monetary halochos are logical laws that HaKodosh
Boruch Hu has given us to use when dealing with others.
Man understands them, so their study is beneficial for his
intellectual development and it makes him wise" (Maran the
Chofetz Chaim zt'l, in a note to his introduction to
Torah Or.)
Dinei Momonos -- An Everlasting Spring, More
Desirable Than Gold and Sweeter Than Honey
"[These are the mishpotim] that you shall set before
them' (Shemos 21:1) -- Rashi explains in several
places that mishpotim are logically understandable
laws. Hashem informed us that He will cause [the Jews] to
agree to His will by making the reasons for the Torah's
mitzvos pleasing and palatable. This is what the Torah
emphasizes to us by saying "that you shall set before
them.'
"The Torah has, in these mitzvos in particular, told us [that
they should be pleasing and reasonable]. R' Yishmoel said,
Someone who wants to become wise should study dinei
momonos, since there is no corner of the Torah greater
than they, and they are like an everlasting spring.' These
mitzvos are all based on wisdom and reasoning, and are
learned by comparing one to the other. They are unlike other
mitzvos, about which Chazal write (Chulin 48b), `You
cannot compare treifos to each other' and hilchos
mo'eid are barren and you cannot learn one from the
other' (Mo'eid Koton 12a). [In those cases the
underlying reasoning is obscure and one cannot make reliable
comparisons or analogies since he cannot be sure that he has
taken all factors into account.]
"This is the meaning of what Dovid Hamelech o'h wrote
(Tehillim 19:10): `The mishpotim of Hashem are
true and are righteous altogether' -- they are
inferred one from the other and prove each other. This is
what R' Yishmoel meant by calling dinei momonos a
"corner" of the Torah -- they are joined together like
corners joining two walls.
"The mishpotim are an everlasting spring because their
reasons originate from the root of wisdom, that flows like an
everlasting spring. Likewise the posuk reads, `The
mishpotim of Hashem are true . . . and are more
desirable than gold and even much fine gold, and sweeter than
honey and honeycomb' (v. 11). The posuk is praising
the Torah's mishpotim. Craving gold and diamonds is a
purposeless pursuit. The more a person has of them the more
his desire for them increases, as is written, `Someone who
loves money will not be satisfied by money' (Koheles
5:9). He cannot enjoy such things, because his desire for
them has intensified in the meantime. A person craves to eat
honey and honeycomb because of their sweetness, but not when
he is sated with them, as the posuk says
(Mishlei 27:7), `A sated soul loathes [even] a
honeycomb.'
"Dovid compares Hashem's mishpotim to both gold and
fine gold, since when a person studies more of the Torah's
mishpotim his desire for them increases until it
becomes as great as an everlasting spring. Moreover the
mishpotim are likened to honey and honeycomb in that
they are even sweeter and more pleasurable to one's palate
than these things" (Ponim Yofos on the Torah by the
Haflo'oh, parshas Mishpotim.)
Studying the Dinim of Monetary Matters Causes
One to be Careful About Them
"Praised be Hashem! It seems that in our locality the
issurim of neveilos and treifos and the
like are implanted in Jewish souls. No one needs to force
himself and to overcome his desires in order to distance
himself from those prohibited things, since they are anyway
repulsive to him. No butcher would, cholila, even
think of being negligent about asking a moreh tzedek
whether there is any doubt of a treifah in an animal's
internal organs, even though he might, because of this,
suffer a colossal financial loss. He simply fears Heaven, so
he is accustomed to acting in a way that characterizes this
fear. Cholila for him to do such a wicked thing as to
cause Jews to sin.
"Nonetheless, due to our many sins, when business deals are
involved, the opposite is true. Most people will not ask a
question of something being gezel or oshek
until someone lodges monetary claims against them. There are
those who, even after such a demand, will carry out, or try
to carry out, deceptive schemes. Yet according to the Torah
and its specific details the two areas [treifos and
gezel] are equal, being both negative mitzvos: `You
shall not eat treifah meat in the field,' `You shall
not eat any neveilah,' `You shall not oppress another
person,' `You shall not steal,' and so on.
"Just as in the Jewish nefesh all sorts of
treifos are equal, and a person keeps far away from
anything the Torah rules is treifah and follows what
the Torah says, so is it true in monetary matters. Anything
that according to the Torah belongs to another person is
gezel and a person transgresses `You shall not
steal.'
"We, however, see, due to our many sins, that even Torah
scholars and sometimes even G-d-fearing people are not
sufficiently careful about this negative mitzvah, for which
Yom Kippur and death together do not atone. Indeed, if a
person devotes himself to in-depth study of the
halochos pertaining to monetary matters, the
gemora and poskim, each person according to his
abilities, and especially if he focuses on [the fact of]
their being like [any other] issur and heter,
becoming fully aware that he must beware of gezel (and
even if initially he does not observe them because of a
person's strong innate desire to sin, since their observance
is remote from the popular habit), how great a power this
[study] has to gradually implant an enormous kinyan in
his nefesh. Eventually questions of issur and
heter and questions concerning money will be equal for
him" (Igeres Hamussar of Rabbenu Yisroel of Salant
zt'l.)
Character Improvement is Useless Without
Studying Monetary Halochos
"Those who have perfected themselves in their youth through
studying how to improve their middos, but have not
studied halochos of monetary matters and have not
acquired the love of mishpat, are more likely to
contact the sickness of perverting din than regular
people, even though they never studied the mussar of
yirah and middos. The reason is that the
yetzer hora puts haughtiness and assertiveness in the
heart of a person while he is perfecting himself in his
middos. He looks at common people with arrogance, as
if he is much above them. Anything he does seems to him the
most generous and refined thing to do. He will laugh at
someone who suspects him of doing some monetary injustice:
`Is not everything I do always more than the din
requires and as forthright as can be? Being careful about
mishpat was not meant for me. It is for people who
love themselves, whose deeds are imperfect and all of whose
inclinations are towards theft. It was not meant for those
who toil over acquiring yirah and perfecting
themselves.'
"In addition, someone who suspects him of injustice is as if
he is disgracing the chachomim and profaning Heaven's
honor, cholila.
"Nonetheless, R' Yisroel zt'l revealed to us in his
letter that although a person's intent can be proper,
sometimes what he does can be altogether corrupt. Someone who
did not toil over studying the halocho intensively
will not be aware of its value and will ignore its ways. He
will be lacking the main principle of avodas Hashem:
[Hashem] commanded us to observe the details of
halocho and love them. If a person lacks in
mishpat, what has he acquired?
"Just as it is impossible to observe Shabbos without knowing
its halochos, just as it is impossible to avoid
forbidden food without knowing what is ossur and what
is muttar, likewise it is impossible to beware of
gezel and chomos without studying the
halochos concerning interrelations between people.
Doubtless someone who has never studied this or interested
himself in knowing it deeply, steals and robs others all the
time without even knowing what he is doing. What good is his
perfecting his middos, about which he is so proud,
when his hands are continually filthy with gezel and
chomos?" (Emunah Ubitochon of the Chazon Ish
zt'l)
My Torah and My Mishpat
"In my opinion this can be explained with the aid of a
general introduction. All of the dinim of monetary
matters (which are mishpotim -- based on reasoning),
regarding relations between people, are different from other
mitzvos of the Torah. Concerning all other mitzvos the Torah
warned us to obey positive and negative mitzvos and we
fulfill them because of our obligation to do so.
"With the dinim of monetary affairs the case is
different. Before we must fulfill Hashem's mitzvah to pay or
return money, a monetary obligation must be present. Even
when a child, who is not obligated to do the mitzvos, steals,
the beis din must rescue the oppressed person and
force the child to return what he has stolen to its rightful
owner.
"Another basic principle is that when we are discussing what
right or kinyan a person has to a certain object or
whether a certain sum of money is meshubad to him, we
are not talking about observing any mitzvah but rather about
to whom it belongs in reality, and who is fitting, according
to the Torah, to keep that object.
"I believe that a person's obligation to fulfill monetary
obligations is a logically comprehensible din which
concerns whether or not a person is culpable to pay a certain
sum out of his possessions. This obligation is a
mishpat, and the person is obliged to pay even without
there being a mitzvah of the Torah involved. It is just like
the case of the type of kinyonim and the laws of
ownership of objects: this is an obligation based on
mishpat, not dependent upon the Torah's injunction to
us, `You shall not steal,' as we explained above.
"It is altogether impossible to say that our determination
that an object belongs to Reuven is because Shimon is
commanded by the Torah not to steal from him. It is just the
opposite: the issur of gezel applies
after the parameters of ownership have been
decided.
"Likewise it seems that the mitzvah of paying back a debt is
after it has been decided according to the din that it
is a mishpat. If Reuben is obligated to pay money
because of the mishpat, then the Torah added a warning
and a mitzvah to be careful to pay his obligation.
"Although at first glance it seems amazing to conceive of a
person being forced or obligated to do something without the
command and injunction of the Torah still, when we think
deeply about this matter, we can understand it. Even the
obligation to serve Hashem and fulfill His will is based on
reason and logical recognition. Likewise the obligation and
shibud of money is an obligation based on the
reasoning that we are obligated to do this according to the
rules of kinyonim or that the Torah obligated us, as
in the case of damages, pidyon haben, and the like"
(Sha'arei Yosher of Maran R' Shimon Shkop zt'l,
sha'ar 5, chap. 1-2.)
Monetary Halochos -- An Answer to Questions
in Every Generation
"These two -- wisdom and knowledge -- can only be acquired
through deep searching among the roots of the
halochos. They are the vital fuel of active Jewish
life and the conclusive result of the wealth of the lofty
ideals hidden in them. This is because `the beauty of the
Torah is wisdom' (Derech Eretz Zuta). This is what R'
Yishmoel taught us: `Someone who wants to become wise,' and
ascend higher and higher up `the ladder set in the earth and
its top reaching heavenward,' until he reaches the peak of
wisdom and knowledge through his spiritual stamina, and
enters into a realm of kedusha and tohoroh
concepts, he should engage in dinei momonos.' They are
imperative if one wants to gain true wisdom. The faith of
your times will be strength of salvations (yeshu'os),
wisdom and knowledge' (Yeshaya 33:6). Yeshu'os
is seder Nezikin. A person gains eternal salvation
through it. Through studying the dinim of
momonos in seder Nezikin, one reaches the
pinnacle for which he was created. There is no greater
perfection than reaching this goal.
"`R' Yishmoel said, Someone who wants to become wise should
engage in dinei momonos, since . . . they are like an
everlasting spring.' Man's life is also a continuously
flowing spring of varied acts and inventions. Every discovery
of something that never previously existed in our world
demands a new revelation in our Holy Torah, so that we can
draw guidance from its depths. We must learn from it how to
deal with everything underneath the sun in every generation,
since the halochos of the Torah and the way the world
runs, complement each other. Both of them are the will of
Higher Wisdom and both were given from one Shepherd.
"Much indeed has changed in civilization from the time we
received the Torah on Mount Sinai until today. New inventions
that men have made in the last hundred years, employing the
hidden powers of [the world's] treasury -- prepared by
HaKodosh Boruch Hu in the hidden chests of nature in
His world -- have completely changed the way people act.
Trains, steam ships, electricity, telegraph, telephone, and
aviation have changed man's style of life both in agriculture
and industry. Business has also changed its old ways and has
paved new paths: farming produce and factories pass from one
owner to another on the basis of agreements between groups of
stockholders, without the knowledge of those who have founded
it. All transactions take place with money that governments
issue abundantly according to the quantity of silver and gold
they have in their treasuries. All of these changes have
created new problems in judging monetary matters, and each
practical step needs a chok and mishpat to
enable it to endure and reach fruition on a dependable
basis.
"In the dinei momonos of the Jewish Torah that were
given to us by `Him Who saw all generations from the
beginning,' are solutions for all the questions occurring in
every generation and every period. This includes problems
arising because of changes in this dynamic world, both
through new inventions and the jealousy of one nation for
another.
"Someone who says that the collection of dinim in the
Shulchan Oruch cannot bring order to our life
according to the principle of Hebrew mishpat alone,
says so only because his contact with dinei momonos
was only by way of comparing every concept in Toras
Yisroel to those similar to it in the Roman law books and
the like. He has not studied Torah by analyzing and
discerning [its halochos] from their roots, through
which the principle is always and everywhere revealed in
every one of [the halocho's] details.
"Just as there is nothing new in nature, which only reveals
the powers that HaKodosh Boruch Hu implanted in His
world during the six days of the creation, so there is
nothing new in the Torah. Even what a veteran talmid
will innovate in the future is included in the Torah's
ancient brilliance.
"It is customary that a flesh-and-blood king does not built a
castle by himself but with the services of a craftsman. The
craftsman does not build it by himself but uses plans
indicating how he should make the larger and smaller rooms.
So HaKodosh Boruch Hu `looked in the Torah and created
the world' (Bereishis Rabbah). The mishpat of
the whole world, extending throughout all its chains of
events, through all that has happened in every time and
place, is engraved in the Torah's letters, through which the
world's program was prepared before it was created. In it was
included the thoughts and feelings of mankind throughout all
generations, as many as the days of Heaven over the earth.
"Seder Nezikin has been completely analyzed and has
been throughout history. It has enlarged its borders greatly.
In the years of Rav Yehuda `everyone studied Nezikin'
(Brochos 20). Both when we were living on our own land
and in the Diaspora the dinei momonos in the
seder of the gemoras were included in the basic
Hebrew laws in all botei din throughout the Jewish
Nation. After all this, if a person asks you what a new
sefer on Nezikin will give us or add to us,
since people have no doubt already heard these
chidushim and have already discussed this a long time
ago -- do not listen to someone who says the Ocean of Talmud
reaches only to a certain mark. Do not believe someone who
makes an everlasting spring into a spring whose waters have
stopped and which has been closed up and sealed. `There is no
sefer that does not teach you something' (the Ravad in
his hasogos to Hilchos Megilla VeChanukah,
chap. 2). This includes even those halochos that
everyone seems to know. Someone whose heart has feelings,
whose eyes are opened, and whose ears are attentive, will
hear the clamor of living water bubbling up.
"How significant is the way the Vilna Gaon zt'l
explained the tefillah that R' Meir was accustomed to
say, `to be assiduous in studying My Torah' (Brochos
17). The Gaon explained, each word in the Torah is like `a
door that opens into several rooms.' Just as in the material
world one revelation causes another one to appear, so in
Toras Yisroel each commandment opens ways to another
commandment and one line leads to a second" (Maran R'
Yechezkel Abramsky zt'l in his introduction to
Tosefta Bovo Kama.)
The Importance of Studying Nezikin With Small
Children
It is well known that the custom has always been that young
children concentrate on studying the gemoras of
Nezikin. At an Agudath Israel of America Convention
several years ago which dealt with the topic of the
application of Torah Study To Torah Life, HaRav Reuven
Feinstein presented an instructive and meaningful anecdote
from the life of his father Maran HaRav Moshe Feinstein
zt'l.
During the first years when Torah institutions were being
established in the U.S.A., a group of parents requested not
to start studying gemora with Bovo Kama, Bovo
Metzia, or Bovo Basra as was customary, but to
favor Brochos, in which the daily halochos such
as tefillah, krias Shema, and birchos hanehenin
are taught.
Maran HaRav Moshe Feinstein heard about this request and when
he spoke at a chinuch conference he strongly opposed
the change proposed by the parents. "We must be aware," he
said, "that if children start to study with Eilu
Metziyos or HaMafkid, that is not by accident.
This was the minhag Yisroel for generations and should
not be changed."
R' Moshe also told the reason for this tradition. "First,
studying the halochos of Choshen Mishpat will
permeate the child's heart with the knowledge that the Torah
is not only mitzvos done in the shul. The Torah is
relevant to all of man's life and even tells him how he
should act in the street, with others, and in business, when
he finds some lost object, when he is asked to watch
something, or when he asks about something. The Torah teaches
us the way we should act in every situation, not only in
matters of tefillah and the like. Another reason is
that studying matters of Nezikin and dinei
momonos, including studying certain dapim and
repeatedly reviewing them, will implant in the child's
subconscious that he must be careful with someone else's
money. He will come to realize that he should not touch
something that is not his, not feel that the world is
hefker or that he can pick up something he finds on
the way, and the like. The study of these chapters gives him
the deep feeling that all monetary matters need to be
prudently and basically analyzed."
HaRav Reuven Feinstein added that sometimes he sees young
children who mistakenly damage other people's possessions and
excuse themselves by claiming they did it accidentally,
although this is not halachically correct, since a "person is
always liable for what he does." There are other similar
mistakes. When he checked about these talmidim he
found out that they had not started studying gemora
with Nezikin but rather with Seder Mo'eid or
other sedorim. The basic correct concepts of dinei
momonos and being careful with others' money was not
implanted within them.
HaRav Moshe Feinstein added another interesting point. He
said that he greatly feared changing the way of studying
gemora by beginning gemora study with
Brochos. The young child studies and reviews the
halochos of krias Shema and tefillah,
matters applying to positive mitzvos of the Torah and
derabonon, and later goes to his neighborhood
shul. In shul he sees his father and other Jews
davening after the permitted time, and other Jews not
being careful about these dinim, as unfortunately
happens frequently. When the young child encounters such an
apparent contradiction to what he has studied in detail he is
liable to internalize a dangerous diagnosis: there is a
difference between a halocho and what you actually
have to do. It is as if "it isn't so terrible if you don't do
every single thing." This viewpoint will later on ruin his
outlook for his whole life, since "once a mistake creeps in
it remains."
The above teaches us that the Jewish minhagim about
what to study in the chadorim and yeshivos
kedoshos have deep roots. They are based on significant
reasons (only part of which may be known to us). We should
therefore beware and warn others not to change the accustomed
way of studying Torah, even if parents think that it is
possible to study in a more "efficient" way. Since the above
is true even about what gemora to study, how much more
do we have to rebut any attempt to found a new type of
"yeshiva" that includes in its agenda alien combinations.
