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Nation of Laws – A poem for Parsha Mishpatim

I live in a nation of laws but the laws seem to change with the flick of a tweet.
[additional-authors]
February 12, 2026

Mishpatim 鈥 laws (Exodus 21:1鈥24:18)

I live in a nation of laws
but the laws seem to change
with the flick of a tweet.

It may soon be illegal to
write poems in tercets.
I鈥檓 ready to turn myself in.

The ancient text, the ideals
of which lived in the hearts of
the authors of my nation of laws

say not to harass the foreigner.
Can you imagine the ancient
auditing these ordinances.

You鈥檙e not doing it right
they鈥檇 say and probably add in
an observation about how

there seems to be a lot of
people eating meat with dairy.
This is where my vegetarianism

comes in handy. I wonder how
they鈥檇 feel when they learned
some of the mistreated aren鈥檛

foreigners at all. There are no
illegals on stolen land they
shouted from the big stage.

Do any of you vet these things
they鈥檇 shout from the past
and most of us would cheer yeah

but then another tweet would come
and the ancient would be arrested.
This is what it鈥檚 like in my

nation of laws today. I pray
the pen is mightier than the tweet.
I pray for the ancient to be proud.


Rick Lupert, a poet, songleader and graphic designer, is the author of 29 books including 鈥淕od Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion.鈥 Visit him at

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