The Torah is an all-encompassing guide and instruction manual for life. We have a great responsibility to follow the instructions of the Torah, and it is in our best interest to do so, as we will reap the benefits both in this world and the next.

The Torah teaches us what our purpose is in life and what our spiritual goals should be, and it provides guidance to fulfill our purpose and to achieve our goals properly. The Torah is also our manual and guide for our moral and spiritual development, and for our happiness, fulfillment, and peace of mind.

Hashem created us with a mission and a mandate to follow in His ways. That mandate includes a responsibility to live a life of integrity, kindness, humility, and gratitude. It also includes our responsibility to abide by the rules and guidelines that govern a productive society. Every aspect of our lives needs to be motivated be our mission to follow in Hashem’s ways and it needs to be done in a manner that is in line with Hashem’s ways. All of the laws of the Torah are in place to help us to fulfill this mission.

There are 53 mitzvos in Parshas Mishpatim. The uniqueness of Torah Law is demonstrated very clearly through these particular mitzvos. The Torah gives us laws and instructions for all areas of life. It includes civil law, criminal law, family law, and religious law. It teaches us all of the laws that pertain to our relationship with Hashem and to our relationship with others. Torah Law includes the laws that regulate our recognition of Hashem, our trust in Hashem, and our service of Hashem. It also includes laws that govern the way that we interact with others, and there are even laws about morality and middos.

As we read through the parsha we see labor laws, (the mitzvos that require us to even treat our servants properly), bankruptcy laws ( the mitzvos that require us to even sell ourselves to servitude to fulfill our responsibility to pay our bills), family laws (the mitzva to treat our parents with the proper respect), torts (the mitzvos and laws that relate to our responsibility to not cause others damage and to compensate them when we do cause them damage), criminal justice (the mitzvos and laws that relate to setting up courts to hold people accountable for violations of Torah Law), civil justice (the mitzvos and laws that relate to the courts making sure that the civil laws are adjudicated and enforced.

We also read about many laws about treating others with kindness and respect such as the mitzvos that relate to a converts, widows, orphans, or those with financial challenges. We are responsible to be respectful to them, to care about them, and to be helpful to them as much as we can. We are responsible to help them in a general sense and there are mitzvos that demand that we help them in specific areas as well. We are certainly responsible to not take advantage of them because of their vulnerability.

Interwoven within these laws are also the mitzvos that require us to recognize Hashem’s kindness to us and require us to develop gratitude toward Him. There are other mitzvos that relate directly to our responsibility to remove idol worship from our land and to protect our environment from the negative influences that can affect our beliefs, values, and behaviors.

Generally, all of these areas of law are all independent from each other. In most religions, their religious law mostly focuses on a person’s responsibility to live a life of servitude to “God”. Many people approach the laws that regulate our behaviors with other people either in the category of human morality or under the category of Civil Law. Human Morality isn’t generally seen as an important part of our responsibilities to God, rather it is seen as an outgrowth of our human sensibilities (as we can see that generally people don’t look to God for direction for how they define what they consider to be the proper morality). Civil Law is generally comprised of laws that are created to govern a society in a manner that allows for the productive functions of the society. It promotes systems that ensure safety and security together with systems that promote social and economic stability. Generally, our responsibilities to treat others properly falls under the categories of human morality and Civil law, both of which are not thought of as ingredients in our service of God.

The fact that the Torah has laws about all of these matters is reflective of the fact that each of these matters relate to our mission of emulating the ways of Hashem. Hashem’s ways are the ways of kindness and integrity. When we treat others with respect and kindness, we are following Hashem’s ways and so too when we are following the proper nuances of civil law we are following in Hashem’s ways as well. Every aspect of our lives should be motivated by the desire to follow in Hashem's ways (kindness and integrity) and it should be regulated by the laws that relate to how we should follow in Hashem’s ways (as they are taught to us in the Torah).

The fact that all of the different responsibilities that we have are coming from the same source creates a sense of connection between all of them, and it affects how we carry out all of our responsibilities. The way that we follow Civil Law is with an awareness of Hashem, with an awareness of our compassion for others and an awareness of our dedication to truth. So too, our commitment to morality and to kindness for others is done with an awareness of our responsibility to Hashem and to following all of His laws. There are other examples of the differences that we will find based on the recognition that the source of each of these matters all stem from the same overall mission in life, to serve Hashem by following in His ways.

When each of these areas of responsibility are not approached in the proper context they are often missing the true value of what the rules are really about. For example, from a secular perspective it is important to have Civil Law for the purpose of there being a functional society, but when we are also motivated to follow Civil Law because it is the right thing to do because of our responsibility to act with honesty and compassion we are achieving a much more lofty goal. When our morality is taught to us by Hashem through His Torah we will define what the true morally standards are more appropriately and we will be achieving a more lofty goal as well.

We should all merit to study the laws of the Torah, to know the laws of the Torah, and to understand the values of the Torah. This will enable us to live every aspect of our lives in the manner that helps us fulfill our mission in a manner that is the best for us in this world and for the rest of eternity.