Exodus 21:1

AND these are the orders of judgments which thou shalt order before them.

AND THESE ARE THE ORDINANCES WHICH THOU SHALT SET BEFORE THEM. The reason [why this whole section dealing with mishpatim — civil laws — is placed here, rather than being placed after the chukim — statutes — as is the order in the commandments given at Marah],. The “statutes” are the precepts for which the reasons are generally unknown. See Vol. I, p. 331. is that G-d wanted to explain to them first the civil laws. Thus we find that the first of the Ten Commandments dealt with the obligation of knowing of the existence of G-d, and the second one with the prohibition against idolatry, after which [following the giving of the Ten Commandments] He again instructed Moses, saying, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven, meaning that you, [Moses] should warn them again to take to heart that which they have seen, so that they will be careful to keep these precepts which I have commanded them. For Ye yourselves have seen corresponds to the commandment, I am the Eternal thy G-d;, Verse 2. Ye shall not make with Me — gods of silver etc., Verse 20. — corresponds with Thou shalt have no other gods,, Verse 3. thereby completing the subject of idolatry; likewise, And these are the ordinances corresponds to Thou shalt not covet,, Verse 14. for if a man does not know the laws of house and field or other possessions, he might think that they belong to him and thus covet them and take them for himself. This is why He said, thou shalt set before them just ordinances, which they should establish amongst themselves, so that they will not covet that which does not legally belong to them. And thus did the Rabbis say in Midrash Rabbah: “The whole Torah depends on justice; that is why the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the civil laws directly after the Ten Commandments.” Similarly G-d explains in this section of These are the ordinances additional laws about idolatry, the honor of parents, murder,, Verses 12-14. and adultery, 22:15-16. — which are all mentioned in the Ten Commandments.
The Rabbis have explained:, 6. “Before them, but not before the Canaanites.” This interpretation is based on the observation that it should have said, “which tasim lahem” (“thou shalt set for them”) just as He said, There ‘sam lo’ (He set for them) a statute and an ordinance; thus since He …

Everyone endowed with intelligence should know that it is not my purpose to explain halachic rulings as part of my commentary, something I have mentioned already in my commentary at the beginning of Parshat Vayeshev. I explained there that many such rulings are hinted at by variant spellings in the text, missing words or extraneous words. Many of these have been covered in the commentary on the Torah by my grandfather Rashi of blessed memory. I have set myself the task of only explaining the plain meaning of the text as it is before us. When I explain legislation I do so within the context of its contribution to civilised behaviour, דרך ארץ. My explanations notwithstanding, when they conflict with the halachic rulings, the latter are supreme.

ואלה המשפטים, in the previous paragraph the Torah spoke about the prohibition of coveting property belonging to someone else (20,13). This did not involve action; by contrast ואלה המשפטים, now the Torah speaks about laws governing the concrete nature of “אשר לרעך,” tangible matters belonging to your fellow man.

אשר תשים לפניהם. These are not positive commandments and negative commandments which apply to every Jew, but are applicable only if the occasion arises. The matters under discussion need to be adjudicated only if and when such situations occur in someone’s life.

ואלה המשפטים, “and these are the ordinances, etc.;” Rashi has pointed out that whenever a paragraph in the Torah commences with the word אלה, this signifies that it is not a continuation of something that had been written previously. However, when the paragraph begins with the word: ואלה, “and these, etc., it signals some kind of continuation. From Rashi’s words it would appear that the laws promulgated from here on in did not originate at Sinai as when the Torah wrote in Exodus 19,20 that Hashem descended to Mount Sinai, the whole point was that He did so in order to give the people the whole Torah.In order to solve this apparent contradiction, we need to view the word: פסל used by Rashi to signify a break with what preceded it, is to be understood as in Exodus 34,1 where G–d told Moses to hew himself two Tablets to replace the ones he had shattered after coming down from the Mountain for the first time. The act of “hewing” means to separate what you carve out from a greater quantity of the same base material, i.e. rock. In other words, what we are going to read from here on in are laws that, though of the same origin as the Ten Commandments, had been separated somewhat in time from when and how they were presented to the people. What Rashi meant to tell us was that if this paragraph had commenced with the word אלה, I would have thought that what followed was not of Sinaitic origin at all. In order not to mislead the reader, the Torah added the prefix ו to make clear that what follows was also of Sinaitic origin, i.e. G–d taught Moses all the Torah while he was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. The letter ו here has the same meaning as the word את in Exodus 9,29, where Moses said: כצאתי את העיר, “when I go out from the city.” We find a similar construction in Deuteronomy 28,69: אלה דברי הברית, “these are the words of the covenant, ”where the admonitions have been separated from the blessings. The blessings in that paragraph had been preceded by curses. We find something similar in Deuteronomy 1,1: אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה, “these are the words which Moses had spoken, etc.” where we cannot understand this as something unconnected to what preceded it, but the letter ו is omitted as we are dealing with a different Book of the Torah, one that had not been dictated to Moses, but which G–d had approved after the event as deserving to be part of the written Torah. In Genesis 2,4 the words אלה תולדות השמים והארץ, “these are the generations of heaven and earth are separated from the prehistoric period when the Torah had described the tohu vavohu which had preceded the creation of light.