These are the ordinances that you shall set before them. (Ex. 21:1)
On this verse, the Zohar (II:94a) says: "These are the cycles of reincarnation…"
The Creator of the world and of all souls knows what occurred between individuals in previous lives….
This is a surprising connection, seeing that the subsequent verses speak about monetary laws. However, I heard the following explanation: One person accuses another in court [that he owes him money]. Though the defendant knows he is innocent, the Torah nevertheless obligates him to pay. He shouldn't be plagued by the question "Isn't it a Torah of truth, whose paths are pleasant?", because this is the truth of the Torah and its pleasantness. How can this be so? Undoubtedly, he owed this money to the other man in a previous incarnation, and the Torah is now making him pay in order to free him from this debt. As for the person who took the money deceitfully, he will have to give his own accounting in the future. This is only one example of many possible cases.
This is what the holy Zohar alludes to in its reading of the verse: "These are the ordinances". For while the law may at times seem unjust, really, "these are the cycles of reincarnation". The Creator of the world and of all souls knows what occurred between individuals in previous lives, and directs His world according to the Torah, with love and compassion, with righteousness and true justice.
The implications of this are very broad.
[Adapted by Eliezer Shore from Degel Machane Ephraim ("The Flag of the Camp of Ephraim") parashat Mishpatim,
the seminal work of Rabbi Ephraim Chayim, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov.]
