MISHPATIM

After the tenfold thunder of the dawn,
G-d’s evening speech set forth a plainer food,
For not upon great principles alone
Is justice built, but on exactitude
And on attention to those situations
Where flesh and blood is likely to fall short:
So the design of highest Wisdom places
Beside the sanctuary the law court.
And with the Hebrew slave the Law begins,
Who at the end of six years must go free,
Because the bonds of Egypt are re-cinched
When folk forget G-d’s generosity
And human freedom, which are the ground and sense
Of the Creation and of these judgments.