Valentine Day is coming up and the world has filled with red roses, fluffy teddy-bears and little cute chocolates, so that once a year we can “celebrate love”. Once a year is definitely better than none, and once a year, has its advantages: Once a year is hard to miss, especially when it’s all over the place, adds, news bits, stores, internet. And it’s pretty doable: a pretty card, a lovely date, a gadget, a piece of jewelry, and you’re all good.

Parashat Mishpatim, read this week, stands in stark contrast to the pink “fluff” around us. From last week’s amazing wow of Sinai and the revelation, which in itself is often compared to a wedding between G-d and the Jewish people with the clouds as a chuppa (wedding canopy) and the Torah as the ktuba, we’re thrown to the depth of detailed laws, mitzvoth, legalities, decrees. The honeymoon…