Whenever I listen to the reading of this week’s torah portion, Parshat Mishpatim, our first legal code, the very foundation of Halakha, I am reminded of Michaelangelo’s Creation.
Creation is an artistic masterpiece that also packs a powerful theological punch. The Italian master is obviously celebrating the religious enormity of creation, but is at the same time also bemoaning its theological tragedy. It is hard to ignore the sad aura that permeates the entire scene. The background is dark, perhaps cloudy, and the characters’ facial expressions seem to convey doubt, fear, and hesitation. Adam in particular seems overwhelmed by the experience; he looks sad, lonely, and forlorn. All the pathos Michelangelo is depicting seems to coalesce in the evocative focal point at its center: the empty space between Adam’s and God’s outstretched fingers. God and Adam are seemingly reaching out to each other, desperately trying to touch and connect, but they cannot; an unbridgeable gulf, Michelangelo seems to imply, separates them from one another.
Michelangelo’s message essentially seems to be one of defeat and despair. He ultimately believed that God and humanity are destined to hover perpetually in an estranged state, separate and distant from one another, their craving for intimacy never fully satisfied.
He was wrong, though. Humankind did develop a medium that allows it to surmount what Michelangelo assumed to be an unbridgeable gulf: the creation of Halakha, a process kickstarted in this week’s portion of Mishpatim! The gap he so aptly illustrated dissipates in the halakhic arena. God and humanity are in each other’s grip in that space, not at all distant from one another. That is where we hold on tightly to one another, swirling in a loving embrace of mutual dependence, because halakhic jurisprudence is a dialogical and interactive process whose success is predicated on an assumption of (metaphorical) intellectual intimacy and destinational mutuality between God and us. God provides halakha’s mandate; humankind chaperones its application. Law without a divine mandate lacks transcendental significance, while halakha without human input is destined to wither and disappear.
As a matter of fact, the Psalmist says as much in his brief thesis on the theological foundation of halakhic jurisprudence. “God stands in the midst of the judiciary, He adjudicates alongside the judges,” he proclaims in Psalm 82:1, placing the divine at the center of judicial adjudication. One cannot help but hear in these words a Psalmist (albeit anachronistic) rejection of Michelangelo’s depiction of humankind’s tragic state of perpetual spiritual loneliness. He is refuting the Italian master’s pessimistic outlook by describing halakhic production as a place where God and humanity are linked and intertwined with one another. Humanity is not spiritually doomed, he says.
The Sages spoke about religious law in a similar vein. When they famously proclaimed (Bava Metzia 59B) that “Torah is not in heaven,” they were, counter to conventional interpretation, integrating God into the judicial process, not excluding Him. They did not write God out of the proceedings but instead activated their part in the mutually agreed-upon judicial partnership. They were actually saying: “Torah is not [ONLY] in heaven;” its success is also dependent on the judicial creativity of humankind.
Applied Torah hovers in that blank space Michelangelo portrayed, where the Lawgiver and lawmakers reach out to each other. But, counter to his portrayal, in the halakhic arena these two actors in the divine drama of creation and creativity actually touch – metaphorically. God and humanity dialogue and intersect in a mode of interdependence. When the Sages made their emphatic proclamation (“Torah is not in heaven”) they were, therefore, being celebratory, not triumphant. They were celebrating a mutually fulfilling partnership between God and us that is multifaceted, one that satisfies our spiritual aspirations and at the same time also enhances our social interactions.
Halakha’s power to bridge Michelangelo’s gulf becomes even clearer when we consider the structure of the Torah portion itself. While in the chumash, this week’s portion is separate from last week’s, to me they seem like two chapters of a single story. Parshat Yitro, with its dramatic revelation at Mount Sinai, is merely the preamble, the pre-show fireworks. God in Yitro, on a mountainous stage, resembles a concert performer who is distant and inaccessible. The important, intimate stuff happens next, in this week’s torah portion, where the aloofness subsides and God is ready to become intimately intertwined with the Jewish community. The laws, the mishpatim, are the shared platform for this desired intimacy, because that is where Divine Immanence resides, in the intricacies and nitty-gritty of Halakha.
The aspect of God we encounter in Halakha is the antithesis of aloof and inaccessible. It is an act of sacred co-creation, a harmonious tune composed by Lover and beloved. The Divine voice, solo at Mount Sinai, becomes intermingled and intertwined with us, the listeners, when we respond with the melodious נעשה ונשמע (Na’aseh v’Nishma – “We will do and we will hear”). This subservience to the law is humanity’s love song to God. Our intimacy allows us to intuit God’s will (Na’aseh), and when God articulates the laws, we listen intently (v’Nishma), singing along to a harmonious tune that is the product of two entities codependent on one another.
(This is a condensed version of a much longer essay on halakha. For a further exploration of halakha’s intellectual, communal benefits, and modern creative imperative see here.)
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