PARSHA61 -18: Parashat Mishpatim

From: "Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash"
To: Yhe-parsha@vbm-torah.org
Subject: PARSHA61 -18: Parashat Mishpatim

YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
YISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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PARASHAT MISHPATIM
By Rav Ezra Bick

Generally speaking, when we come across a reference
to angels in the Torah, we do not necessarily have to
engage in an extensive "pshat" investigation. In most
cases, the intention of the verse is to basically refer
to God, perhaps with the added import that it is a
relatively indirect action of God. The word "malakh"
means "agent," and angels are heavenly agents for God,
closely associated with Him. So, for instance, when an
angel calls out to Hagar in the wilderness and tells her
to return to Sarai (Bereishit 15,7-12), we understand it
to refer to the voice of God. This impression is
strengthened by the fact that the angel, in that case,
uses first person singular case when he is clearly
referring to an action of God. "He said to her: I shall
greatly increase your seed; it shall not be numbered for
multitude" (7,10). The same thing takes place with the
angel who stops Avraham from slaughtering Yitzchak (".
for now I know that you are fearful of God, for you did
not withhold your son, your only one, from ME" Bereishit
22,12), and in other places. This does not mean that
"malakh" is just another name for God, which is clearly
not true. My point is only that there is a close
association of the angel with God, and the main point of
the verse is to tell us that God has acted. Only after
one understands that could an additional question be
raised as to why in this particular case the action is
attributed to an angel rather than to God directly.

In our parasha, however, we have a case where the
immediate pshat of the reference to an angel is not to
associate him with God, but to distinguish him from God.
An action takes place with an angel, and because the
angel is NOT God, certain consequences are in place.
This forces us to pay much more attention to the pshat of
what the angel is meant to signify, and why an action of
an angel is different than one of God.

Behold, I am sending an angel before you to guard
you on the way, and to bring you to the place that I
have prepared.
Beware of him, and listen to his voice, and do not
disobey him, for he will not pardon your sins, for
My name is in his midst.
But if you will obey his voice, and do all that I
shall speak, then I shall be the enemy of your
enemies and the adversary of your adversaries.
For My angel shall go before you and bring you to
the Emori, the Chitti, the Prizi, the Canaani, the
Chivi, and the Yevusi, and wipe them out. (Shemot
24,20-23).

Since God is speaking here, and saying He will send
an angel, we cannot simply view the angel as another way
of God expressing Himself. It seems to be important that
this role is being fulfilled by an angel and not by God,
which is why God needs to stress that the people must
obey the angel. The contrast between the angel and God
himself is highlighted in the third verse, "But if you
will obey HIS voice, and do all that -I- shall speak...."
The specific point of this section seems to be, not
merely that God is promising to bring them to Canaan, but
that He is choosing a particular method of doing so,
through the agency of an angel. Our task is to
understand what this particular method means and what it
entails.

A. Which Angel

My argument that in this section, we must distinguish
between God and the angel in order to understand the
basic pshat is based on the syntax. If a story mentions
an angel, the basic pshat is that God has done something.
In our case, where GOD says that He is sending an angel,
the verse forces us to pay attention to two different
actors, God on the one hand, and the angel on the other.
Because of this, I am claiming that there is a
difference, apparently, in the leadership of the angel,
and that of God, were He to directly lead the Jews
through the desert. This second point is, admittedly,
debatable. There is no clear statement in our parasha
that the leadership of the angel, as opposed to God, has
practical ramifications. On the contrary, the only
explicit reference to a ramification of the angel's
leadership - "do not disobey him, for he shall not pardon
your sins" - is explained because "My name is in his
midst." One might be justified in understanding this as
EQUATING the angel with God, rather than distinguishing
between them. The angel bears God's name, so you should
relate to him exactly as you would relate to me. This
would lead to the interesting conclusion that God does
not pardon sins. This conclusion will surely surprise
anyone brought up on Jewish philosophy.

However, the argument that one must distinguish
between God and the angel is based not only on syntax,
but on direct inference as well - if we accept the claim
of Rashi that the angel here is identical with that
proposed by God in parashat Ki-Tisa.

After the sin of the golden calf, God agrees not to
destroy the Jews, and tells Moshe:

Ascend from here, you and the people whom you have
taken out of the land of Egypt, to the land which I
have promised to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to
Yaacov, saying: I shall give it to your seed.
I shall send an angel before you, and I shall expel
the Canaani, the Emori, the Chitti, the Prizi, the
Chivi, and the Yevusi.
To a land flowing with milk and honey, FOR I WILL
NOT ASCEND IN YOUR MIDST, for you are a stiff-necked
people; lest I devour you on the way. (33,1-3)

Here there can be no question that the angel is an
alternative to direct leadership of God. God explains
that if He accompanies the Jews, they will be destroyed,
and therefore He is sending an angel instead.

Rashi (23,20) states that the angel in our parasha
is the same as in Ki-Tisa, and that our parasha is a
prophecy of the outcome of the sin of the golden calf
episode. What is more, Rashi (following Chazal)
understands Moshe's demand, "if Your countenance not go
with us, do not take us up from here" (33,15) to be a
rejection of the angel's leadership. Moshe demands that
God Himself lead the Jews to the promised land, and God
acquiesces and agrees:

God said to Moshe: This thing as well, which you
have demanded, shall I grant, for you have found
favor in My eyes and I know you by name. (17)

This makes it clear that the leadership of the angel
is an inferior form of leadership, which is why Moshe
rejects it. Consequently, in order to explain why God is
telling Moshe in parashat Mishpatim that He will send an
angel INSTEAD OF HIMSELF, before the sin of the golden
calf, Rashi states that it was a prophetic statement,
justified only in light of the future events.

This understanding of our parasha raises obvious
difficulties. One concerns the response of Moshe. If,
after the sin of the golden calf, when it was justified,
Moshe nonetheless objected to God's plan to send an
angel, why was he silent now, when it appears to be
totally unjustified? A second question relates to the
content of the prophecy itself. If, in the end, God had
indeed sent the angel in His place, it might make sense
for the verse to here indicate that, since in fact it
would be true. But in view of Rashi's assertion that God
eventually relents and personally escorts the Jews to the
land of Canaan, why would He state here that an angel
will lead them? This is not a prophecy of what WILL
happen, but only of what should have happened, in light
of as-yet nonexistent events. What is the purpose of
such a statement now? Or, to ask a somewhat different
question, how was Moshe supposed to understand God's
promise to send an angel?

An even more difficult question concerns the
contradiction between the two parshiot. In our parasha,
God states that the angel will NOT forgive the sins of
the people. In Ki-Tisa, God states that He is sending an
angel because the angel will not react to the sins of the
"stiff-necked people" the way GoHimself would, by
"devouring" them. Is the angel more or less forgiving
than God? How can this be the same angel? (See Ramban,
for a discussion of these questions).

The Ran (Derashot HaRan 4) adds another,
theological, question. The entire parasha we are
discussing seems to be telling the Jews that God is
sending an angel in His place, and that we should relate
to the angel as THOUGH HE WERE A GOD. "Beware of him and
listen to his voice, and do not disobey him." And, even
more shockingly, "for he will not pardon your sins." This
sounds, says the Ran, "as though we have been delivered
nearly to accepting him as a god, intermediate between
God and us. but we should not receive any command or
prohibition from anyone other than God alone." This
question of the Ran will be especially troubling after
last week's shiur, where I claimed that God Himself
emphasizes the lesson of the giving of the Torah at Sinai
as showing that there can be no intermediaries between
God and Israel. Why does our parasha seem to be stating
the opposite?

B. Natural and Supernatural Providence

The Ran, as part of his answer to these questions,
explains the metaphysical meaning of "angels" in the
Torah. He explains that when God's actions in the world
are in proportion to the causes in the world, this is
described as being done by an angel, meaning by an agent
who acts in accordance with rules. For instance, this
would be true of any act of Divine Providence that took
place within the laws of nature. For that reason, the
Rambam states that the laws of nature are "angels,"
meaning agents of God's will. The same holds true of
moral rules as well. The basic moral rule is reward and
punishment; in other words, justice. By this rule, a man
gets what he deserves. If a man gets only what he
deserves, whether reward for virtue or punishment for
sin, he is under the providence of an "angel." In other
words, "angel" means the providence of rules, where the
law of cause and effect holds. The effect cannot be
greater than the causes. The angel does not diminish
God's responsibility for the effect, but merely signifies
that the effect is according to the rules of nature or of
Divine Providence.

By contrast, a direct action of God signifies a
PERSONAL response of God to the human condition. Here,
there is no necessity for proportion between cause and
effect, as the law of cause and effect does not bind God.
Causes are, in fact, irrelevant, since God Himself and
His will are the only, and the direct, cause. The action
could be attributed to God's love, or to His anger, but
in any event it is attributed to the personal care of
God.

In this way the Ran explains the apparent
contradiction between the two angels we have examined.
If one sins, the rule says that one will be punished.
The rules do not allow for pardon, since that violates
justice. How could one's condition be different than
what one deserves? Pardon for sin, in the eyes of an
"angel," is like a match deciding to burn without
friction, "pardoning" one who neglected to strike it.
Hence, "he will not pardon your sins." On the other hand,
the punishment will always "fit the crime," and therefore
will probably not lead to total destruction. But if God
is directly leading the Jews, and they, a stiff-necked
people, rebel and not follow His ways, the possibility
that "I devour you on the way" exists. Personal
attention is a wonderful - but potentially exceedingly
dangerous - thing.

But, it is important to remember, there is no
necessary contradiction between the two. God can
transfer the providence over the Jews to natural and
proportional cause without abandoning them. The two can
exist at the same time. If there is no fear of "lest I
devour you on the way," God has no reason to remove His
personal attention from the Jews, even while subjecting
them to a set of rules whereby the results are dependent
on the preparation of the proportional causes.

C. From Egypt to Eretz Yisrael

We can now understand the message in our parasha.
The exodus from Egypt was totally "non-angelic." As
Chazal put it (in the famous passage found in the Pesach
Haggada), "I, and not an angel; I, and not a seraph; I,
and not a messenger." The miracles were neither in
proportion to the spiritual state of the Jews, nor did
they work through the forces of nature. But the goal of
the exodus is to reach the Land of Israel, to settle in
it, work the land, be responsible for developing it, and
in general to lead a natural life under God's providence
according to the Torah. God, in our parasha, is not
threatening to leave the Jews, but to relate, on a day-to-
day basis, according to the rules of the Torah itself.
This change is inherent in the giving of the Torah, a set
of rules, and the entering into a covenant between the
Jews and God, a contract which defines behavior. Moshe
has no objection to this "angel;" on the contrary, it is
the fulfillment of the Torah he is helping to bring and a
necessary condition of life in the promised land, his
goal.

This is emphasized in the verses themselves.

"Behold, I am sending an angel before you to guard
you on the way, and to bring you to the PLACE THAT I HAVE
PREPARED." The purpose of the angel, the agent, is to
bring you to the place that God HAS PREPARED. A place
prepared is one where the conditions of life are present
and you have to utilize them, not a place where God will
immediately provide what you need. If God is personally
reacting, there is no need for any preparation
whatsoever.

The quid pro quo of the "angelic" relationship is
made explicit in the third verse. "But if you will obey
his voice, and do all that I shall speak, then I shall be
the enemy of your enemies and the adversary of your
adversaries." If you will obey the Torah, there is no
limit to what will result. One does not have to fear
that the results will be less momentous than the victory
over Egypt. The verses continue to describe how total
will be the victory in Canaan, and how wonderful can be
the life in Eretz Yisrael.

There will be no miscarriage or barren in your land,
the number of your days I will fulfill.
I shall send My terror before you, and kill all the
people to whom you shall come..
I shall send hornets before you, and they will drive
out the Chivi, the Canaani, and the Chitti from
before you. (23,26-28)

All of these verses describe agents - My terror, the
hornets - which will produce a result which to us appears
miraculous. Even miracles are "angelic," if they are
deserved. Angelic providence, then, is not a negative
form of providence; on the contrary, it is the goal of
living a life according to Torah in a world with laws and
rules. This is the first thing God explains after giving
the "rules," the mishpatim, which follow the decalogue
itself.

The sin of the golden calf changed this, mandating
not only angelic providence but the removal of direct
personal providence which might have overridden the first
at a time of great sin, especially a sin like the calf
which was a personal rejection of God. God proposes
therefore not only to send an angel, but to remove
Himself from direct contact with the people. This Moshe
rejects, for without the personal presence of God, he
feels, there is no point in going to Eretz Yisrael and
living under angelic providence. To this claim of Moshe
God accedes.

YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH
ALON SHEVUT, GUSH ETZION 90433

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