Who wants to be a chacham?
As we all know from the Hagada, the wise person can delineate between the various types of commandments. In our parsha - which contains no less than 53 mitzvot! - we find a varied selection of Torah laws ordered by G-d.
There are mishpatim: civil laws that any self-respecting society must create (e.g., prohibitions of theft and murder, the majority rules, etc.); mitzvot: laws that make sense to us, but which we might not otherwise have enacted (e.g., Shabbat, Chagim); and chukim: laws for which the reason is not widely known (e.g., kashrut).
In a sense, every mitzvah has elements of all three categories. Even the most obvious mishpat has cosmic implications unknown to the mortal mind; and every mysterious chok has recognizable value and meaning.
Take, for example, the following mitzvah from our sedra: "If you take a fellow's clothes as security, you shall surely return them by sunrise." (22:25)
On a practical level, we cannot function without our clothes, and to be deprived of them would rob us of our dignity. Yet, on a deeper level, this mitzvah reminds us that every morning, Hashem returns our body (our souls' "clothing") to us. And so, we must be thankful each and every day.
Or the idea that a thief pays double for his theft. This penalty makes good sense, as it deters future robbery. But on a deeper level, the mitzvah is saying that every time you succumb to your baser instincts, you pay "double". You suffer a financial loss, and you also lose your good name, your integrity. A thief is, well... a thief.
Kashrut - embodied in the verse, "You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk" - defies rational explanation. It is not necessarily healthier for the body (as shmaltz and gribennes prove!), but is part of the "uniform" a Jew of faith wears.
It can also have a practical side. I recall one of our JOC lectures some years ago by a young man who recounted how he had been a member of a cult and later "de-programmed" back into Judaism. He told the audience how he had been invited to dinner by a cult member and thus got "sucked into" the group.
"Had I kept kosher," he said ruefully, "they would never have gotten their hooks into me in the first place!"
Mitzvot are aerobic. High-impact or low-impact, they all have a marked effect on our spiritual fitness.
As we all know from the Hagada, the wise person can delineate between the various types of commandments. In our parsha - which contains no less than 53 mitzvot! - we find a varied selection of Torah laws ordered by G-d.
There are mishpatim: civil laws that any self-respecting society must create (e.g., prohibitions of theft and murder, the majority rules, etc.); mitzvot: laws that make sense to us, but which we might not otherwise have enacted (e.g., Shabbat, Chagim); and chukim: laws for which the reason is not widely known (e.g., kashrut).
In a sense, every mitzvah has elements of all three categories. Even the most obvious mishpat has cosmic implications unknown to the mortal mind; and every mysterious chok has recognizable value and meaning.
Take, for example, the following mitzvah from our sedra: "If you take a fellow's clothes as security, you shall surely return them by sunrise." (22:25)
On a practical level, we cannot function without our clothes, and to be deprived of them would rob us of our dignity. Yet, on a deeper level, this mitzvah reminds us that every morning, Hashem returns our body (our souls' "clothing") to us. And so, we must be thankful each and every day.
Or the idea that a thief pays double for his theft. This penalty makes good sense, as it deters future robbery. But on a deeper level, the mitzvah is saying that every time you succumb to your baser instincts, you pay "double". You suffer a financial loss, and you also lose your good name, your integrity. A thief is, well... a thief.
Kashrut - embodied in the verse, "You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk" - defies rational explanation. It is not necessarily healthier for the body (as shmaltz and gribennes prove!), but is part of the "uniform" a Jew of faith wears.
It can also have a practical side. I recall one of our JOC lectures some years ago by a young man who recounted how he had been a member of a cult and later "de-programmed" back into Judaism. He told the audience how he had been invited to dinner by a cult member and thus got "sucked into" the group.
"Had I kept kosher," he said ruefully, "they would never have gotten their hooks into me in the first place!"
Mitzvot are aerobic. High-impact or low-impact, they all have a marked effect on our spiritual fitness.