This is an activity that can be used on Shabbat with a youth group, or even at a Shabbat table. It is designed for ages 12 and up. Participants take different roles, study their parts, and present to the other participants. If you have more than four participants, divide into partners or small groups. Although the text is presented as a script, rather than reading it out loud, please study it and use your own words.
Please provide the whole portion of Mishpatim to the participants so that they can read it as a whole, either alone, with a partner, or as a whole group.
Enduring Understanding: Jewish law provides civil and criminal law, as well as guidance for our spiritual lives.
Essential Question: How might this apply to me personally to take action in my life?
Instructions:
Participants will choose a role, read through the materials, and present.
- Roles to choose from:
- Legal Expert
- Editorial commentators
- Storytellers
- Facilitators
- Provide the following:
- Sources
- Costumes or at least specific hats that indicate the roles of the particular participants.
- Use a clock to time each portion of the activity
- Set the timer for each portion of the activity
- 15 minutes to prepare
- 10 minutes for each presentation
- 15 minutes for the reflection
Script to use for this lesson (Please use your own words if possible):
Legal Expert
In this portion, Moshe is commanded by God to transmit civil and criminal laws in an organized and prepared format. The portion includes 23 positive commandments (You have to do…) and 30 prohibitions (You are not to do…).
These laws make sense. They are necessary for any society to exist. But the portion starts with the phrase, “And these are the laws..) The classic commentator, Rashi, tells us that these laws also come from Sinai. These laws are also Divine.
These are the categories of the laws:
- Laws of slaves
- Assault and kidnapping
- Negligence and theft
- Illicit and idolatrous behavior
- Helping the unfortunate and respective leaders
- Agricultural offerings
- Judicial laws and avoiding prejudice
- Shabbat and Jewish holidays
- Mentioning idols
- Dispersion of enemies, and conquest of the land
Editorial Commentator
One of the commandments in this portion is to lend money to a person in need. Our Sages explain that all of the commandments that we are told to keep are also kept by God.
What is a loan? One person gives money to another, even if the lender isn’t obligated to do so. It isn’t a gift. The borrower must return the money.
God also gives a loan to His people. What does He give? He gives us powers. Powers to act, to succeed, and to cope. God doesn’t measure these powers and doesn’t grant them only to those who deserve them. Similar to a loan among people, this loan doesn’t only apply to those who are eligible.
But these powers aren’t a gift. We have to pay God back. How do we pay Him back? We carry out God’s will in this world. We keep His laws in the physical world.
In the continuation of the commandment of lending money, the Torah tells us to be sensitive and supportive toward the borrower. It’s forbidden to pressure the borrower to return the money. If he doesn’t return the money, he clearly isn’t able to. The lender isn’t permitted to come to the borrower’s home, lest he be embarrassed.
Also, God, who lends us strength and power, doesn’t pressure us. How might God pressure us? Through punishments and troubles. May God take a course of kindness and compassion, and may it be revealed in a good way.
Storyteller
The Little Things that Count
If you lend money: Every “if” in the Torah refers to a voluntary act, except for three, which introduce mandatory mitzvos, and this is one of them (Rashi).
Whether awake or in his dreams, Reb Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch would often see his grandfather, Reb Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who had passed away from his life in This World, and who brought him solutions from the World of Truth to the learned problems which troubled him in both the overt and hidden areas of the Torah. On one occasion he was closeted in his study, profoundly immersed in his books, and in doubt as to how to resolve certain scholarly questions. He yearned to see his grandfather – but this was not granted him, and he was deeply distressed.
A long time passed, and one morning Reb Menachem Mendel rose early to go to pray in the shul (synagogue)of his father in law, Reb Dov Ber of Lubavitch. On his way through the marketplace, he was stopped by a simple pious Jew who made a living from his petty transactions there. It was market day, and the man asked for the loan of three rubles until the evening, or until the next morning. Reb. Menachem Mendel asked him to call on him at home after he had returned from the morning service, and then he would give him the loan.
Arriving at the synagogue, he prepared himself for prayer and had already taken out his prayer shawl and put it over his shoulder in readiness to wrap himself in it, when the request of that man came to mind. It had not been right on his part to defer the loan: today was market day, and in the meantime, that dealer could possibly have earned something. He laid down the prayer shawl at once, went home, took five rubles, and set out to find the man – which he eventually did, though with great difficulty, for the marketplace had filled now with hundreds of peasants with their wagons and merchandise from the surrounding villages. The little deed done, he returned to pray.
No sooner had he wrapped himself in his prayer shawl and put on his tefillin then he saw before him the joyful countenance of his grandfather, who answered his scholarly questions and then added: “When a man gives a loan to a fellow Jew with all his heart and without any untoward motives, and does a favor lovingly, in fulfillment of the command – ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ – for such a man the portals of all the palaces of heaven are opened wide.”
Facilitator
Reflections:
What did I like?
What do I wish?
What do I wonder?
References
“Exodus 21:1-24:18 | Sefaria.” Sefaria: A Living Library of Jewish Texts Online. Web. 23 Feb. 2017.
Miller, Chaim. The Gutnick Edition Chumash = : With Rashi’s Commentary, Targum Onkelos, Haftaros and Commentary Anthologized from Classic Rabbinic Texts and the Works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Brooklyn, NY: Kol Menachem, 2005. 145-178. Print.
Schneerson, Menachem Mendel. “From a Talk on the Portion of Mishpatim.” Hisva’duyos: 5747. Vol. 2. Brooklyn, NY: Kehas, 1990. 476-83. Print.
Schneerson, Menachem Mendel. “Pp.81-83.” Maayan Hai: On the Book of Shmot. Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 5754. Print.
Zevin, Shelomoh Yosef. “Pp. 255-256.” A Treasury of Chassidic Tales. Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publ., 2004.Print.