Shemot 21:1
These are the rules that you shall set before them.
Rashi
Why is this section dealing with the “civil laws” placed immediately after that commanding the making of the altar?
Sforno
now the Torah speaks about laws governing the concrete nature of tangible matters belonging to your fellow man.
Berakhot 8a
The Holy One, Blessed Be He, has no place in this world but the four cubits of halakha.
I Kings 8:13
I have built for You a residence, a place for You to dwell forever.
I Kings 8:27
Will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens and highest reaches cannot contain You. how much less this House that I have built!
Megillah 31a
Wherever you find the majesty of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, there you will find His humility.
Rabbi Aidan Steinsaltz
…Torah sees things in a way that is often different from our usual way of thinking. The Torah is not a philosophical text that finds grandeur in metaphysical treatises. Rather, the Torah finds majesty precisely in the worldliness and in the details. At Sinai, we look up, toward the heavens above, toward lofty, uplifting things. But immediately thereafter our view tilts downward, to the earthly, crude matter and, perhaps surprisingly, we are able to see holiness there as well.
…
Contrary to our expectations, the most exalted things can be found not above, but below. … He can reveal Himself equally in heaven and on earth, even in the smallest earthly details. After the exalted experience at Sinai, after the people look heavenward and see the thunder and the lightning and the smoke, comes the real revelation, that one that truly touches upon the most exalted of all.
Rabbi Yehudah Leib
Rashi notes that “just as those preceding are Torah [so too are those that follow].” [The Ten Utterances and Parshat Mishpatim]. In fact everything comes from Torah, and she is the one who blesses both that which comes before her and that which follows her, since all the world was created for the sake of Torah. It was the generation that received the Torah who brought this potential into realization, but the work of the preceding generations served as preparation for Torah. … These rungs are always present in everyone who serves God. It is as we straighten our paths that we come to attain Torah. Afterwards, by the power of Torah we are able to straighten our ways even more properly. And thus it is forever.
…
A person has to set aright his conduct in matters concerning the relationship with God in order to merit the written Torah. But to merit Torah, we have to concern ourselves with the relationship with others. And this latter is the higher rung … It is of greater merit to repair one’s ways with regard to fellow humans.
Shemot 24:12
The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and wait there.
Translation Rabbi Leib: Come up to Me upon the mountain and be there.
Rabbi Yehudah Leib
this means that Moses was transformed into a new being … The Zohar says that “be there” (sham) can be read as “be a name” (shem), meaning that Moses became the Holy Name. All of Israel have a part in that form. … This is the “extra soul,” [of Shabbat] and that is why “the light of a person’s face on the Sabbath is not the same as it is during the week.”
Shemot 22:30
You shall be holy people to Me [alt: You shall be people of holiness unto Me.]
Rabbi Yehudah Leib
In the name of the holy rabbi of Kotsk … The guarding of holiness has to be within the realm of human deeds and activities.