A Gift for All Jewish Men & Women

PARASHAT MISHPATIM - THE LAWS

of COMPASSION

by HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh

"The standard rights of married girls"

This week's parashah, Mishpatim, follows up the Ten Commandments with the basics of Torah law. It contains many details, including the responsibilities a husband has toward his wife. Some of these responsibilities are learned from the phrase, "the standard rights of married girls,"1 which Rashi writes refers to responsibility of the husband to provide his wife with food, clothing, and conjugal rights. The word translated here as "rights" is actually the singular form of the parashah's name, "law" (מִשְׁפָּט) and this is the first time it appears in the parashah following the introductory verse. Thus, there is an essential tie between law and the rights of married women.

Reference to marriage using legal terminology suggests that marriage is a contract and gives it the air of a legal institution, an atmosphere that seems very distant from the emotional relationship that inherently lies at its core. However, the Tikunei Zohar reveals that justice and law do indeed have a heart, and that heart is truly revealed through the legal responsibilities the husband has to his beloved wife.

Laws are Compassion

The introduction to the Tikunei Zohar includes a surprising definition: "laws [are] compassion." Kabbalah reveals that the true nature of law and justice starts with a sense of compassion and reflects compassion. The fact that justice is truly founded on compassion is indeed illustrated by the bond between a husband and wife.

Even though a Jewish husband is legally bound to provide his wife with that which is rightfully hers, in essence the legal dimension is the external manifestation of the inner dimension of their relationship. In fact, compassion creates a deeper relationship than does love.

Love vs. Compassion

How so? True love refers to the will to give to someone else. But many times, there is a sliver of egotism that feeds this will. If giving is connected with an expectation to receive in return, that is not love at all. But, even if there is no such expectation, it may certainly be that the one giving is motivated by the enjoyment collected from the very act of giving to someone else (perhaps even experiencing it as an act of influencing that someone else) instead of the enjoyment experienced by the other person in receiving. Loving someone may still include a degree of self-involvement. In principle then, love focuses on the act of giving, not upon how the giving is actually received.

Yet, compassion is about identifying with the other person. If I truly identify with my spouse, my focus becomes how my giving is received. My concern is then that my spouse receive what he or she truly needs, what will truly make them happy.

Compassion as Identification and Empathy

When it comes to marriage, the husband can properly provide his wife with "the standard rights of married girls" only if he truly identifies with her and feels compassion. To empathize with his wife, the husband must reveal his own inner feminine qualities. Thus compassion reveals the female that lies dormant within every male, rooted there from his initial identification with his mother when he was in her womb. In fact, the Hebrew word for "womb" (רֶחֶם) is the root form of the word for "compassion" (רַחֲמִים). The root of compassion lying in our first experience as a baby in our mothers' wombs is true for both men and women. But, particularly for men, identifying with this experience and exercising compassion refines them and allows them to give in the more feminine, kinder and more gentle manner expected by women.

Compassion is the inner motivator and experience of the sefirah of beauty (תִּפְאֶרֶת). As such it is connected with the feminine ability to see the beauty in diversity, as when many colors are brought together in a beautiful painting. Thus empathy towards one's wife, also opens the masculine heart, allowing it to appreciate feminine beauty. An example of this sensibility to beauty is seen in Rabbi Akiva's lamentation over the beauty of a woman that is lost upon death. The inner dimension of sensibility to beauty stems from an identification with the woman's refined soul and with her own inner beauty. Empathizing in this manner with his wife, deters the husband from behavior that might cause his spouse heartache and taint her refinement, making it coarse.

Manly Intuition

A hint to the principle that a man must develop an intuitive sensibility to his wife's needs can be found in Rashi's commentary. Rashi explains that the Torah's words, "the standard rights of married girls" refers to food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Yet, the Torah does indeed define that these are the "rights of married girls" in the very next verse. Why does Rashi need to define them then in his commentary!?

The answer is that Rashi is hinting that even before he is told explicitly, the husband should be compassionate enough, empathizes enough with his wife to feel her implicit needs. Furthermore the word "girls" (הַבָּנוֹת) permutes to spell the word "sensibility" (תְּבוּנָה), teaching the husband that he must develop a sensibility to what his wife requires and how to provide her with it in a sensitive manner. He then merits that his wife indeed becomes his home, similar to Rabbi Yosi who said, "Never have I called my wife, 'my wife." Rather, I have always called her 'my home.'"2 Indeed, the connection between the woman and the home is further alluded to in the initial letters of the phrase, "[he] shall accord her the standard rights of married girls" (כְּמִשְׁפַּט הַבָּנוֹת יַעֲשֶׂה לָהּ), which spell the word for "palace" (הֵיכָל).

Sensibility and Offspring

The Tanya notes3 (based on the Zohar and Etz Chayim) that the word for "sensibility" (תבונה) also contains the letters of "boy" (בן) and "daughter" (בת), indicating that by being sensitive and compassionate to his wife, a man merits fulfilling the requirements of the first commandment of the Torah: having children. Having a son is the spiritual product of the husband giving himself entirely over to his wife, without trace of egotism. A daughter is the spiritual result of the husband identifying and empathizing with his wife and her feminine perspective on reality.

(based on Yayim Mesame'ach Vol. 1, pp. 105-7)

Notes: 1. Exodus 21:9. 2. Shabbat 118b. 3. Ch. 16.