פָּרָשַׁת מִשְׁפָּטִים

Parshat Mishpatim tells how the Torah given at Sinai reaches into daily life: the civil and moral laws that follow the Ten Commandments, and the sealing of the covenant. The laws come in order: the Hebrew servant and maidservant; murder and manslaughter, striking or cursing parents, kidnapping; injuries, the goring ox, the open pit, theft and its double and fourfold payments; the four guardians — unpaid, paid, borrower and renter; seduction, sorcery, idolatry; the stranger, the widow and the orphan, whose cry Hashem hears; lending without interest and returning the pledge by nightfall; honest testimony and judgment, not following the majority to do wrong, not taking bribes, helping even an enemy's fallen donkey; the Shemitah year, Shabbat, and the three festivals — Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot — when all appear before Hashem; and not cooking a goat (kid) in its mother's milk (From this prohibition, we separate milk and meat). Hashem promises an angel to lead them to the land and to drive out its nations little by little, warning against covenants with them.

Then the covenant is sealed. Moshe tells the people all the words and laws, writes them down, builds an altar with twelve pillars, and reads the Sefer HaBrit aloud; the people answer, "Naaseh venishma" — we will do and we will hear — and Moshe throws the blood of the covenant on them. Moshe, Aharon, Nadav, Avihu and seventy elders go up and see a vision of the G-d of Yisrael. Then Moshe goes up alone into the cloud on Har Sinai to receive the tablets, and stays forty days and forty nights. Pesukim 22:24–23:19 are read on Chol HaMoed Pesach; in many years Mishpatim falls on Shabbat Shekalim or Shabbat Mevarchim Adar.