Setting Things In Stone? Mishpatim

“And he took the scroll of the covenant and read in the people’s ears”

Exodus 24:7

The Torah Portion Mishpatim illustrates the challenges of legal literacy. In antiquity, was it possible for a fledgling nation to disseminate the concepts of societal boundaries and affirmative duties upon its citizenry? If so, what methodology could be employed to assure that laws and morals were passed onto future generations? How could these concerns be set in stone?

In Mishpatim, the Children of Israel got an earful. Moses orally transmits statutes, ordinances, commandments and judgments to the people.

We are told “[a]nd Moses came and told the people all of the Lord’s words and all the judgments. And all the people answered, one voice, and they said, ‘we’ll do all the things that the Lord has spoken.'” Exodus 24:3. (emphasis added)

After the oral presentation, Moses wrote down the Lord’s words. Exodus 24:4.

Pedagogy?

From a cognitive learning standpoint, this event was troublesome. It is inconceivable that this oral transmittal of such a significant and complex set of materials could guarantee generational compliance.

To learn and absorb such content, a multi-disciplinary approach should be employed. Learning is optimally achieved through listening, seeing, reading and writing. Conversations and debate also enhance learning. Merely listening to the words is simply not sufficient.

While the expansiveness of these concepts is modern, the Torah captured these concepts. It was done so, however, with respect to the country’s leaders.

Mishpatim, however, illustrates a problematic attempt at achieving generational national legal literacy. The Hebrew Bible continues to follow up with multiple attempts and multiple failures to reach the goal. Text scarcity, scribal scarcity and literacy rates among the general population likely impacted the goal’s achievement.

From Mishpatim, there were multiple readings to the people. Mishpatim tells of Moses taking the scroll of the covenant and reading in the people’s ears. They said “We’ll do everything that the Lord has spoken, and we’ll listen.” Exodus 24:7. (Note: Was this the recitation of the Ten Commandments or a re-reading of the judgments?)

Mishpatim, near the end, gives a lead in to one of the most well-known Torah events. The Lord tells Moses to ‘come up to me, to the mountain, and be there, and I’ll give you stone tablets and the instruction and the commandments that I’ve written to instruct them.” Exodus 24:12.

With these happenings, Children of Israel’s words of affirmation were taken for granted. There is no evidence that any legal literacy program was enacted to ensure compliance. Thus, it is not a surprise that the people struggled with the law.

The Best Methodology?

Even the Torah acknowledges that one’s command of the law takes more effort. It appears that they appreciate the complexity of learning.

In Deuteronomy, an educational program was instituted for the monarchy. “And it will be, when he sits on his kingdom’s throne, that he shall write himself a copy of this instruction on a scroll from in front of the Levite priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he will learn to fear the Lord, his God, to observe all the words of this instruction and these laws, to do them.” Deuteronomy 17:18-19.

Thus, if both writing and instruction were required for Monarchs, certainly it would have been beneficial for others.

For certain, this passage illustrates the expectation that Israelite King was to be legally literate. Further, the goal required much effort and it was done with excellent means.

The End Result

Thus, it should be no surprise that national legal literacy may have crystalized must later in time. Increased scribal activity and literacy expanded access to the law. As such, it is likely the post-biblical Hasmonean period of the Maccabees was the first well-versed in the law. See The Origins of Judaism by Adler.

Thus, one must wonder what was in the Lord was thinking when the famous words were uttered: “Come up to me, to the mountain, and be there, and I’ll give you stone tablets and the instruction and the commandment that I’ve written to instruct them.” ? Exodus 24:12.

These words carry some irony as we know that these tablets are destined to be shattered in the golden calf incident. One could says that the “People of the Book” struggled to be the “People of the Book” without extensive access to “Book.” Thus, setting matters in stone, at that juncture, was a fragile proposition.

Conclusion

Sometimes, it is valuable to take a step back to ask the question “what went wrong?” In this instance, there was a significant challenge. The world was one with literacy emerging. Scribal communities existed but there was no program for societal literacy. Rather, certain areas of life were subject to greater literacy, i.e. governmental matters and commerce.

Thus, as general societal literacy spread, the people’s connection to both the Covenant and the Hebrew Bible grew. The bottom line is that educating a mixed-multitude of peoples who had recently exited a house of bondage proved to be both a daunting, and arguably, impossible challenge.

Be well!!

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