February 21, 2020 “For a poor person who cries out to Me … I am compassionate”    Mishpatim 22:26

Parsha Mishpatim is a divine canon for relations among people that is best characterized in aggregate as a guide to living compassionately. It is a code of humane conduct as applied in employment, in treatment of the most vulnerable – women, immigrants and the poor, in judicial ethics, in business, and in criminal justice. In our society, the cynicism spreading in these pursuits is a stain Jews especially must resist. Though It may be tempting to slander organized labor who defend the rights and dignity of workers, to disparage the poor as lazy or “entitled”, to deplore the uneducated as apathetic, and to portray immigrants as criminals and opportunists, here we learn to solve the complex issues in our society by extending a sympathetic hand to the most indigent and exposed and pulling them up. We’re commanded so.