Parashat Yitro

Essays and Articles:

Go to Hebrew site

The Autonomous Law

Or

Non-Obedience to Compulsory Law

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

The Role of the Citizen in the Creation of the Law

“One, God has spoken.  Two, have I heard.”

 “Power to God.”

Man’s active participation in the creation of the law gives the law its force and its power and its very existence.  “We will do, and we will hear:”

“We will do” at matan Torah, and “we will hear” when the covenant is sealed, when the Blood of Covenant is divided into two perfect halves, to represent the reciprocal nature of the law.

“Speak, you, with us, and let not God speak with us, lest we die.”  This is man’s autonomous territory, the living space of his own that a man requires – in order to participate actively in the forming of the law: Torah shebe’al peh – the Oral Torah.

For six year olds, perceiving the law as non-autonomous causes a reaction of disobedience. 

How does one effect obedience to the law?

“And you will see that hashgaha cannot be attained except by major exertion…Indeed the intention of the text is to introduce three elements that are the essentials of preparation for receiving the Torah.  It was by means of these that God consented to bequeath His heritage to them; that is our lovely Torah.” 

“The first is: Overcoming one’s own weakness and exerting great effort for Torah involvement…to the point of giving one’s life for it.”

“The second is: Humbleness and humility, because words of Torah cannot be sustained except in one who humbles himself, and makes himself as a desert.”

“And the third is: That the destiny of the wise is meant to be joined together, with whole and full hearts, that they should not be isolated, as those of whom scripture says: (Yirmiyahu 50:36) “Destroyed over the isolated ones.” (Ta’anit 7)  Rather they should convene together, and sharpen each other’s insights, and show a benevolent face to each other…Regarding this, it says: “And Yisrael, he camped there,” in singular form, for they had all together become as one person.”  (Ohr Hahaim 19:2)

Law, Education, and Values

Disobedience of the law is like the discipline problems in the army, though the army would seem to be built entirely on discipline.  The law must deal with the problem of the citizen’s identifying with it.  The law in essence is comprised of two main factors: Determining the clear territory of moral order (the “permitted / forbidden” method) and the compulsory factor.

The law is not supposed to determine, or to deal in any way with essential values.  That is the business of the values people – men of religion and philosophy.  The law is nothing but a tool of application.

For this reason, the law’s territory of involvement is practical reality, in the realm of public/social behavior.  The law has no interest in, and has no right to enter the private space.  The law receives justification for its existence only the moment one individual’s behavior could harm another individual.  That means the moment an individual deviates from his private individual space.

We see from here that the law does not belong to the realm of education.  The law is not meant to educate for values, but only to serve as their watchdog.  The “this is permitted” / “that is forbidden” method has no connection whatsoever with essential meanings and values.  The law is only a structure – a container that has no content.  It draws its meaningful content from the realm of values, and it is in need of education so as to impenetrate these values into the realm of public behavior.

The attempt to introduce law into public behavior without the assistance of education is doomed to failure, to the same failure that awaits every compulsive approach.

Laying on the heavy yoke of taxation, raising taxes to over twenty percent of income earned; this does not add to the state treasury, but rather detracts, and causes losses to the treasury.  The same problem exists in non-natural, arbitrary frameworks like the army:  The more coercion at the expense of values, the more non-use of education as a tool of persuasion, the less motivation to fight, and the more evasion of discipline.

The same difficulties arise when attempting to impose law on children, or on a primitive public body that has not been educated to keeping the law, that lacks a consciousness of public responsibility.  Similarly, attempting to impose a law that does not address an immediate need; a war tax during wartime is easier to impose than a security tax during peace time.

The Torah’s approach to this problem is discussed in Parashat Yitro, beginning with Yitro’s advice: Bring down the law from on high, make it accessible to the nation (democracy) involve them in the creation, consolidation, and application of the law.

From Yitro’s advice, the Torah moves to aseret hadibrot, the foundation of which differs from the content.  The content of the Ten Commandments deals with strengthening the moral element: “Do not steal…do not covet…etc.”  However, these all are founded upon and encompassed within an imperative that derives from absolute authority: Anochi, “I am God, your Lord.”

Torah law divides into mitsvot, hukim, and mishpatim: Mitsvot are commandments accompanied by reasons.  Hukim are laws that seem to have no obvious or explicable reason.  Mishpatim are laws that address the realm of interpersonal morality, universally accepted as being vital for society’s proper functioning.

Ohr Hahaim sharpens our focus; these are the paths to acquiring this Torah law:

Amal HaTorah, toiling in Torah: Active, creative participation, through identifying with the meaningful content of the law.

Anava, humility: A reverent attitude to the supreme source of the law, both in terms of its contents and in terms of the foundation of authority on which it stands.

Dibuk haverim, close association with comrades-in-learning: Utilizing the principle of general consensus, democracy.

It is important to note that each one of these is vital to all three categories of the law.  Nevertheless, each has a certain category in which it plays the most central role.  Thus, general consensus would be the central element in the public, inter-personal law, and in the relationship of the individual to society.  Humility would be the gate through which legal awareness would enter, through which one could acquire an understanding of the law per se`, clean of any apparent moral goal.  Amal haTorah, toiling in Torah, would be the basis for imbuing moral values.