The Joy of Understanding….

An installment in the series
From the Waters of the Shiloah: Plumbing the Depths of the Izhbitzer School
For series introduction click here.
By Rabbi Dovid Schwartz

You will therefore observe the commandments (Mitzvos), and the irrational statutes (Chukim), and the rational ordinances (Mishpatim), which I command you this day, to fulfill them.
Last Pasuk of Parshas VeEschanan

And it will come to pass that in the end, you will listen to these rational ordinances (Mishpatim), and observe and fulfill these, then HaShem your L-rd shall keep with you the covenant and the compassion, which He swore to your fathers.
First Pasuk in Parshas Ekev

Devarim 7:11-12

The jarring contrast between these two adjacent Pesukim is readily apparent. The first includes the generic catchall term, Mitzvos and the two sub-categories of Chukim and Mishpatim while the latter pasuk lists only Mishpatim.

The Izhbitzer is troubled by this contrast and by the opening word of the Parsha; VeHaya, which Chazal teaches us, is indicative of joy and happiness.

The classically defined difference Mishpatim and Chukim is that the ta’amim, the reasons for the former are readily apparent “had the Torah never been revealed, some human legislator would have instituted these as laws”. Their justness is manifest. Whereas whichever taamim are provided by Chazal and great Torah thinkers for Chukim are of a symbolic or homiletic nature. As brilliant and even compelling as many of these taamim are, they call to mind the parable of the boy who drew the bulls-eyes around the arrows only after they were stuck in the wall. No human legislator would ever have promulgated such laws.

As rational beings we often find Chukim inherently less gishmak= satisfying than Mishpatim. Often, our rational minds question and recoil from Chukim. We fulfill them as religious duties and as expressions of our deep-seated belief that, in the Divine Mind, logical reasons for them do in fact exist. Yet to a lesser or greater degree, when compared to Mishpatim we find them burdensome and onerous.

Just as reading a good music review cannot replicate the experience of seeing and hearing the symphony orchestra play the music, believing that apparently irrational Mitzvos are logical and good for us is no substitute for hearing and understanding that they are, indeed, logical and good for us. Currently unable to actually grasp the reasonableness, goodness and compassion that inhere in the Chukim we bear them as a burden.

The sensibility of the here-and-now world bifurcates the Mitzvos into rational and irrational categories. But in the End of Days HaShem will grant us a new consciousness, more perceptive and nimble minds.

The Izhbitzer reads these two Pesukim not as contradictory but as complimentary. Pasuk 11 speaks of K’lal Yisrael observing and fulfilling all categories of Mitzvos. Pasuk 12 is a yiud= a good tiding of joyous things to come. On “That Day” the plugs in our ears that allowed for bifurcated Mitzvos will be removed. We will hear and understand that Chukim are an illusion, figments of our constrained consciousness, and that ALL the Mitzvos of the Torah are Mishpatim. We will then grasp that the Mishpat, the fairness and justice that informs the Torah in its entirety was to provide the wherewithal for HaShem to bestow favor and goodness upon Israel. On “That Day” when this new “hearing”, this expanded consciousness, dawns upon us “then will our mouths be filled with joyous laughter.”

It is precisely because pasuk 12 mentions only Mishpatim that it begins with the word VeHaya.

Adapted from Mei HaShiloach Volume I Devarim 7:12 page 117and page 118