Mishpatim
Reflection by Rabbi Dr. James Jacobson-Maisels, Founder & President of Or HaLev:
“In the midst of a series of laws in parshat Mishpatim, we are commanded the following:
`Your mallea (maleatkha) and your dima (dimakha) shall not be delayed. You shall give Me the first-born among your sons` (Ex. 22:28).
This verse is notoriously difficult to translate and understand. So much so that Abraham ibn Ezra literally comments `interpreting this is difficult.` Rashi says `I don’t know what this word dima is.` Classical commentators seem to understand maleatkha as referring to produce and dimakha as olive oil or grape juice which are pressed like tears (dima) from the olive or grape.
On a deeper, hyper-literal reading the verse is very clear. We can read it simply as saying `Your fullness and your tears should not be delayed. Bring Me the choicest of your children.` God is telling us that our fullness is welcome. This includes our difficulty: our tears, our struggles, our confusion. And this includes the best part of ourselves, what we are proudest of having given birth to: our majesty, our power, our love, our clarity. Don’t wait in shame or confusion, or in fearing that your gloriousness will not be met with appreciation and recognition, or in thinking that there is a better time, another time. The time is now. All of you can be welcomed and offered to the Divine. God can hold it all.
And then the next verse continues, `You shall do the same with your cattle and your flocks` (Ex. 22:29). In the tradition of the Ba’al Shem Tov, we can read this verse as telling us to go even deeper. Bring the bestial elements of you, the animalistic, the parts that feel scary, unacceptable, wild, and ravenous. Those parts are welcome, too. It can all be held, received, offered to the Divine
This is our practice. Don’t hold anything back, be with it all, wildly, fiercely, softly, lovingly. This is choiceless awareness. We can hold all our complexity in a loving embrace. We can be the hands of God as they receive the offering of our own authenticity, the fullness of what we are. Our practice can be the altar on which all these aspects of ourselves are embraced and transmuted into divine gifts. Bring your fullness, right now, as a gift to the divine, as a gift to the world.”