In last week’s Torah portion, the Torah was given at Mount Sinai to the Jewish people. At the end of that parshat, the Torah tells us about building an altar: “Make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come to you and bless you. And if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your sword upon them you have profaned them.” According to Rashi, because the altar’s purpose is to lengthen our days and an iron sword comes to shorten human’s days, it is not right that an object which shortens man’s life should be lifted up above that which lengthens it (Mekhilta, Middoth 3:4).
Following the commandments about the altar comes this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, in which the Jewish people receive a large array of civil laws. Rashi asks about the juxtaposition between the commandments regarding the altar and the civil laws. He explains that just as the laws of the altar and the civil laws are placed next to each other in the Torah, so too should the Sanhedrin, which decides law and enforces justice, sit in a room on the Temple Mount adjacent to the altar.
The Maharal comments that the altar and the Sanhedrin are in proximity not only due to their juxtaposition in our parshat, but also because their goals are similar: to bring peace. “The altar brings peace between the Jewish people and God, for the word korban, ‘sacrifice’, is from the word karov, ‘to come close’…and the court brings peace between people by enforcing civil law and judging cases between people”. Due to the importance of peace, the altar and the chamber of hewn stone in which the Sanhedrin sat are both next to each other in the (spiritual) center of the world, on the Temple Mount.
What is particularly strange about this comparison is that — due to the peaceful nature of the altar — the Torah says we can not cut the stones of it, since we would need to use a sword, a weapon of war, to do so; yet the Sanhedrin actually sits inside a room within the wall of the Temple called the lishkat hagazit — “the chamber of cut stone”, according to the Mahral.
It seems like if the Sanhedrin too is here to bring peace then, like the altar, its stones should not be cut. Yet it is precisely that, and the court room is actually known by the name it gets from the cut stones within which it sits!
The 13th century Italian mystic Rabbi Avrohom Rikinati explains that the altar symbolizes peace through mercy. The stones are not cut to fit together — one juts out here and another there; they are imperfect. This teaches us that we must judge others favorably, we must be merciful, and accept them where they are. The Jewish people are unified before God as one people who are not all the same: we are individuals, like the stones in the altar, one sticking out here and another there.
When it comes to the Sanhedrin, the peace it makes is not the same as the peace made through the altar. Mercy for one litigant is the opposite for the other. To make peace, there must be a cutting edge. Exactness. We must reach the truth. Thus, the Sanhedrin is symbolized by cut stones, all in alignment.
The uncut stones in the altar and the cut stones of the courtroom therefore both symbolize peace, but a peace achieved with very different, almost opposite methodology. The altar makes peace through acceptance; the court through justice, and truth.