The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
R' Frand began by noting that Thursday was the 25th of Shvat which was R' Yisrael Salanter's yahrtzeit. He stated that in the year that R' Yisrael died, the 25th of Shvat fell on erev Shabbos of Parshas Mishpatim, but because R' Yisrael died close to Shabbos, the burial was on Sunday - the first day of the week of Parshas Terumah.
R' Frand quoted the Alter M'Kelem who stated that it was fitting that R' Yisrael died during that week, because Mishpatim is filled with mitzvos ben adam l'chavero, and R' Yisrael had taught that the mitzvos between man and fellow man are no less important than the mitzvos between man and Hashem.
R' Frand also quoted R' Hutner in Pachad Yitzchak who noted that in Shemos 20:1, when the Torah states that Hashem spoke "all these statements", Rashi states that Hashem said all ten of the commandments at one time. But why would Hashem say all of them at once, if people cannot understand them that way? R' Hutner explained that they were all said together because both the 5 of the ben adam l'Makom and the 5 which are ben adam l'chavero are equally important.
R' Frand next quoted R' Matisyahu Solomon who observed that the first 5 commandments are much more verbose than the second 5 commandments, although they each occupied the same amount of space on the tablets. He theorized that it must have been that the second 5 were written much larger. Why? Because both came from Sinai and both are equally important.
R' Frand next quoted R' Hutner who noted that at the end of Mishpatim (Shemos 24:6), Moshe threw half the blood on the altar and half on the people. Rashi explains that the blood was split equally by an angel. But why was an angel needed to make the split? Because a mortal could not make a precise 50/50 split and it was important that half went to Hashem and half went to the people, because just as the laws of ben adam l'Makom are from Sinai, so are the laws ben adam l'chavero.
R' Frand told a story about the funeral of the Altar M'Slobodka, whereat R' Gordon noted that the parsha of Mishpatim has many laws between man and fellow man, but begins with the laws of how to treat an Eved Ivri. But this man is someone who became a slave because he stole from a fellow Jew. Why is he mentioned first in a parsha about ben adam l'chavero? He explained that the lesson is that all Jews are created in the image of Hashem, even the thief.
R' Frand next told a story which R' Ruderman told in a shmooze about how he never forgot when he was a young boy, seeing in shul on Hoshana Rabbah how the gabbai was harangued for forgetting to have a kittel ready for the Ba'al Mussaf. As if the affront of forgetting the kittel justified embarrassing him. He also told a story about R' Shraga Feivel Mendelovich who once accompanied a man home on Friday evening. When the man arrived he found his wife dozing in a chair, but the challos were uncovered. He yelled at his wife over this, but R' Shraga said to him - why do we cover the challos? So they wont be embarrassed when we skip over their priority in Berachos. But what about avoiding causing your wife embarrassment?
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