Ellen Dannin looks at some of the laws written in the Mishpatim and challenges the reader to see their relevance, even if they may seem distant at first. Attending to the needs of our neighbors as well as the stranger are injunctions from the Torah which we must not avoid.

Mishpatim is full of injunctions which concern the society's care for its strangers. The Torah orders us to love the stranger or not oppress the stranger stranger thirty-six times. But here the issue is closer at hand. It regards the treatment of our neighbors, the people we live with and see every day.

Read the dvar-Torah!