The beginning of Parashat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:2 – 22:16) is interesting on a couple of counts.
First, the parashah begins on verse 2 of chapter 21 of Exodus. Students sometimes ask, “Why does it begin on the second verse?”
If you look at a Torah scroll, there are no divisions into chapters. There are also no vowel markings, and nothing to serve as punctuation. Anyone preparing to chant Torah has to use a book called a tikkun to memorize these things beforehand.
Jews divide the text into verses, the length of which were handed down to us from the Masoretes, rabbis who specialized in the text from the 6th to the 13th centuries. They transmitted the knowledge of where the verses end and begin.
The books of the Torah are also divided into parshiyot [portions]. These are rather like chapters, but they are not the chapters in modern Bibles. They are marked by gaps in the Torah text, and we see those gaps very early, even in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Modern-day chapters of books were not a Jewish innovation. Rather, an Archbishop of Canterbury named Stephen Langton set chapter divisions for the books in 1227. Wycliff’s English Bible translation (1382) was the first Bible to appear with the chapters, which quickly became standard in all Bibles. Since neither Stephen Langton nor John Wycliffe were interested in Jewish opinions about the text, their chapters do not always match up with our parshiyot. Mishpatim is just such a parashah, which begins on verse 2 of chapter 21 of Exodus.
The second interesting item in the beginning of this parashah is its first letter. Here is the full first verse:
וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ הַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תָּשִׂ֖ים לִפְנֵיהֶֽם׃
It may be translated: “And these are the rules you shall put before them.”
Look at the far right end of the line, at the little vertical line with two dots below it. That’s the Hebrew letter “vav,” which can be translated in many ways but here is best read “and.” Such a tiny word – only a letter! And with the rest of the word to which it is attached, “V’ehleh,” it means “And these are.”
We are taught (by Rashi and others) that this word “v’ehleh” in Biblical Hebrew tells us there is continuity between what went before and what follows. That is, the rules that follow are of one piece with the rules that came before this word. What came before? The Ten Commandments. So with one little word, the writer is letting us know that not only were the Ten Commandments given at Sinai; so were the other laws [mishpatim] that follow.
Every tiny detail of the Torah is significant. This is why one of our earliest sages, Joshua ben Perachyah said: “Get yourself a teacher and find yourself a friend” with whom to study. (Avot 1.6) For those who must study by themselves, a good commentary can be a help: through the commentaries we hear the voices of many teachers.
Do you study with a teacher or a friend? Is there a commentary with which you particularly like to learn?
I remember when I first began acting as gabbai in my shul, calling pages. The first Aliyah, I said, “The Torah reading begins on….” I was corrected to say, “The Torah reading continues on page……”
First, Ruth, I want to thank you for your Friday blogs which give us so many different perspectives to look at as we move into Shabbat. They make my day. As for the question (do I have a favorite commentary), I look back over the years and see a progression. I always (and still) love the Friedman commentary, which channeled my thoughts in different and priceless ways. Now I tend to choose the Women’s Commentary, which turned out to be so much more than I expected it to be. I love the layout, the parshah outlines, the before and after readings, and surprisingly, the poetry. I’ve never been a poetry lover, but I find myself reading these and discovering all kinds of wonderful insights.
Mary, sorry to be so long in replying! I have a lot of fun putting together those Friday posts. I hope to keep them up as long as there are readers for them.
I agree, Friedman is wonderful and so is the Women’s Commentary. Did you know that one of the editors of the Women’s Commentary is Dr. Tamara Eskinazi from HUC in LA?