פרשת משפטים - מה המנייה הכי טובה?

(1) These are the rules that you shall set before them:

(3) לפניהם BEFORE THEM — but not before the heathens. Even if you know that in the case of a particular matter of law they will decide it in the same way as Jewish law would, do not bring it before their courts; for he who brings Israel’s law-cases before the heathens defames the Name of the Lord and pays honour to the name of the idol (in the name of which the heathen court administers justice), thereby giving it undue importance, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 32:31) “For their rock is not as our Rock that our enemies should be judges over us”, which implies: when our enemies are judges over us (i. e. if we make them judges over us) it is a testimony to the superiority of that which they reverence (their idol) (Midrash Tanchuma, Mishpatim 3).

לפניהם, “before them.” Rashi sees in this word an exclusion of gentiles, to whom all these ordinances will not apply, even if they would adopt our system of civil law. [Presumably, he felt that otherwise that word is superfluous, as it is obvious that the laws would be addressed to the |sraelites. Ed.] Jews are not allowed to submit their litigation to a gentile court even if the rules of that court are like those of ours. Our author uses a parable to illustrate the point. Imagine that two sick persons go to a physician to have themselves examined. The physician tells one of them to eat, heartily and healthily, whereas he tells the second one to abstain from some of the very foods he had encouraged the first person to eat from heartily. The reason is that not every food is good for everyone. What is good for one patient may be very dangerous for the next patient. When the physician advised the first patient to eat heartily, the reason was that that patient was diagnosed as fatally ill, so that he might as well enjoy the time left for him on earth. The same advice to the second patient would prove very dangerous for him. The same reasoning applies to Jews and gentiles. We read in Ezekiel 20,25 concerning the gentiles that G–d had given them laws and statutes that they could not live by, whereas the laws He gave to the Israelites were designed to be for their benefit. [This verse is extremely difficult, and the reader is advised to read the commentary by Rabbi M.Eisemann in the Art Scroll edition of the Book of Ezekiel. Ed.] Rashi assumes that when the Israelites fail to observe G–d’s laws, they will eventually attribute their hardships to G–d’s laws having been harmful. We are taught in the Torah that the opposite is true. Compare Leviticus 18.5. This is also the reason why we are forbidden to eat all kinds of creeping creatures, as they are injurious to one’s health. These same creatures, if eaten by gentiles, are not harmful to them. This is also the meaning of Psalms 147,19: מגיד דבריו ליעקב, חוקיו ,” ,משפטיו לישראל. לא עשה כן לכל גוי, “He issus His commands to Yaakov, His statutes and rules to Israel; He did not do so for any other nation;” The following is a true story involving the convert Onkelos, a nephew of the Roman Emperor Hadrianus, who when wishing to convert was afraid of the wrath of his uncle the Emperor. He told his uncle that he wished to engage in business, whereupon his uncle asked him if he was short of capital, in which case he was willing to help him out. He told his uncle that he wished to travel and find out which merchandise was both in demand and easy to obtain. His uncle told him to seek out a field which was presently in a recession so that he could invest at low prices and profit when market conditions would improve. As a result, he went to the land of Israel, at that time in a deep depression commercially, and studied Torah from the scholars prior to undergoing circumcision for becoming a convert. He was told that the words of Torah would only reside within him permanently if he circumcised himself first. He followed this advice, circumcised himself and studied a great deal of Torah. When Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua saw him, they noticed that his facial features had undergone a great change. They concluded that this was not Onkelos who had studied the Torah. When he began to ask the scholars questions, they told him that this was the result. When he returned to his uncle the Emperor, the latter asked him what had brought about the change in his facial features. He told him that he had studied the Torah and had himself circumcised. Upon being asked who had advised him to do this, he said: “you have.” He explained that his uncle had told him to acquire merchandise which was in a depression and patiently wait until this merchandise would appreciate in value. He had visited many nations and not found a single one which was in such a state of depression as the Jewish nation, so that he became convinced that their fortunes would improve drastically. He quoted the prophet Isaiah 49,7 who had predicted this already more than five hundred years earlier. The Emperor slapped his face and asked him once more what had prompted him to convert to Judaism. He told him that actually, he had gone to study the Torah, but had been told that the condition for being taught Torah was that he had to be circumcised, just as Yaakov. He quoted Psalms 147,20 where it has been spelled out by the use of the word בל, that only the people of Israel had been endowed with Torah knowledge that could be retained. (Tanchuma, Mishpatim section 5)