Themes of Featured Contemporary Kabbalists Articles

According to the Midrash, G-d allegorically fulfills all the precepts that He commanded the Jewish people. Since the relationship between G-d and the Jewish people is compared to that between husband and wife, G-d has "obligated" Himself to provide the Jewish people with food, clothing, and conjugal rights as a husband's basic obligations to his wife.

"Food" is fully digested. This refers to the revealed aspects of the Torah which can be fully grasped by human intellect and completely integrated into our being. "Clothing" refers to the esoteric, hidden parts of Torah which can be analyzed, and affect the learner. However, they are never fully assimilated, and remain essentially beyond our grasp. "Conjugal rights" are the third and deepest level, the most intimate dimension of the Torah which requires special preparation and refinement in order to be approached and ultimately leads to the pinnacle of connectedness with G-d.

The Torah is G-d's guide to living life, but it is also much more than that. G-d implanted His essence in us when He gave us the Torah. Giving the Torah established a double connection between G-d and Israel: a contractual agreement based on commandments, compliance, reward, and punishment, and a covenantal bond transcending the parameters of behavior and forging an inviolable, eternal bond between them.

Parashat Yitro describes the contractual agreement: the Ten Commandments, our acceptance of them and additional mitzvot that demonstrate how His law is to permeate and determine even the seemingly logical conventions of a just society, continuing through the majority of parashat Mishpatim.

From then on, parashat Mishpatim focuses on the covenantal bond between the Jewish people and G-d which gave them the status of G-d's servants: their proclamation, "we will do and we will obey" (their unconditional acceptance of the Torah); Moses writing down the "Book of the Covenant"; the altar they built to offer sacrifices, and the sprinkling of "the blood of the covenant",  through all of which the Jewish people rose spiritually and connected to G-d.