Shabbat Shalom ~ Mishpatim 2026

Dear WJC Family,

This week’s parashah, Mishpatim, moves us immediately from the sounds and lights at Sinai into the hum-drum details of daily life: how people resolve disputes, take responsibility for harm, protect the vulnerable, and live alongside one another with fairness.

“These are the laws that you shall place before them” (Exodus 21:1).
Rashi, one of our favorite Medieval commentators, explains that the laws must be set out clearly – like a prepared table – so that everyone can understand them and live by them. Justice, in the Torah’s vision, is not mysterious or reserved for experts alone. It is meant to be practiced openly, by ordinary people, in the course of everyday life.

This Shabbat we also mark Shabbat Shekalim, one of the four special Shabbatot leading up to Purim and Passover.  This particular Shabbat calls for full, equal, civic participation in the building of the Mishkan, in the building of a future relationship with God.

“These are the laws you shall place before them.” The Torah speaks here not in the language of sentiment, but of responsibility. Our commitment to the dignity of all and equal participation in civic life is meant to shape how we act, judge, and relate to others.

This teaching is a reflection on a religious instinct and prophetic vision that, for Jews, has never been abstract. Mishpatim assumes that people will show up to courts, tell the truth, care about fairness, and take responsibility for one another. Long before Jews had political power, the Torah trained us in the habits of public responsibility: how to live under law, how to argue constructively, and how to protect dignity in the details of everyday life.

The metaphor of the set table is an apt one for this moment in time, too.  As we read Mishpatim this week, we are invited to return to that work by doing, day by day, what the Torah asks of us: to take our responsibility to one another seriously, to treat law as a shared inheritance, and to remember that holiness is sustained not only by moments of inspiration, but by the steady practice of justice.

Wishing you a meaningful Shabbat.

See you in shul,

Rabbi Dalton