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Shemot
Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1–24:18)

Fresh from Sinai’s revelation, Israel receives a detailed civil and moral code that brings holiness into daily life. Laws address the treatment and release of the Hebrew bondsman; protections for the vulnerable; penalties for injury, theft, and negligence (including the goring ox and unsafe property); responsibilities of lenders and guardians; and the demand for truthful testimony and fair courts. The text insists on justice with compassion: do not oppress the stranger, widow, or orphan; return lost property; refuse bribes; give workers rest on Shabbat; let the land rest in the seventh year so the poor and animals may eat. Ritual rhythms also take shape: first fruits, prohibitions against idolatry and sorcery, the command not to cook a kid in its mother’s milk, and the three pilgrimage festivals—Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

God promises an angel to lead Israel to the land if they heed His voice and dismantle idolatry. The covenant is then formally sealed: Moses writes the “Book of the Covenant,” builds an altar with twelve pillars, and young men offer sacrifices. The people respond, “We will do and we will hear,” as Moses sprinkles the blood of the covenant upon the altar and the people. Moses, Aaron, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy elders ascend, behold a vision of the Divine, and eat and drink. Finally, Moses climbs into the cloud atop Sinai for forty days and nights to receive the tablets and further instruction. Themes to listen for: justice that protects the powerless, responsibility for harm even without intent, sacred time as social equality, and a covenant embraced first by action and then by understanding.