Parashat Mishpatim, Exodus 21:1-24:18

Slavery is an affront to God.

Some things in the Torah are tough to take. Women feel left out of the text in certain regards. And gays read specific verses as a denial of their essential nature. This week we come across such an item that makes every modern Jew uncomfortable.

The very first set of laws in parashat Mishpatim deals with, umm, slavery. That's right, slavery. Here we are in the year 5768, commonly known as 2008, and we are reading about how to treat your slave. Two weeks after the American commemoration of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth we read about slavery. The Torah portion following the revelation at Sinai, where we are reminded that God freed us from the house of bondage (Exodus 20:2), we read about the eved ivri, the Hebrew slave. Technically we would call this unfortunate person an indentured servant. This is the individual who cannot make restitution for having stolen some items (Exodus 22:2) or has sold himself because of extreme poverty (Leviticus 25:39). Later in the Torah we will read about non-Hebrew slaves as well.

Perusing the classical Jewish commentaries, one finds nothing about the institution of slavery. It was a part of life.

Slavery was known throughout antiquity, as far back as the fourth millennium. The Torah deals with it as a fact of life—one, however, that involved a basic contradiction: while in many ways treated as a chattel (a “thing”), a slave was also a human being. The Torah did not resolve this contradiction and therefore did not portray slavery as something inherently evil.

W. Gunther Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary

Our post-Biblical ancestors dealt with this text within the bounds of their time and place. While much of what they say makes us uncomfortable, there is still a lesson to be learned from their words. For example, Maimonides explains that, as we are servants to God, we must follow God's example in treating others:

It is permissible to work a servant harshly. Yet, although this is the law, the way of the pious and the wise is to be compassionate and to pursue justice, not to overburden or oppress a servant, and to provide them from every dish and every drink. The early sages would give their servants from every dish on their table. …you should not denigrate a servant, neither physically nor verbally. The Torah made him your servant to do work, not to be disgraced. Do not treat him with constant screaming and anger, rather speak with him pleasantly and listen to his complaints.

Mishneh Torah, Avadim, 9:8

Substitute the word worker, housekeeper, employee, or hired hand for servant, and we get a modern lesson in proper treatment of those whom we hire.

I don't know about you, but I'm still uncomfortable with this entire issue. Especially given the fact that we just read the Ten Commandments last week: Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave… (Exodus 20:8-10) Did I miss the mention of slaves before, or was I so taken in by the command that Shabbat is for everyone? Why must I be reminded that Shabbat is all-inclusive? Is there a danger that I would see my servant as a commodity and not a living being, a human being? In so doing I would ultimately disrespect the covenant and offend God.

An echo of the Ten Commandments is found at the beginning of our parashah, where it says When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment. (Exodus 21:2) The Hebrew word for "go free" is yatsah, which has the same root as the verb "to bring out," found in the first commandment: I the Lord am your God who brought you out (hotseiticha) of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. It is the same root as in the term "Exodus (yetsiat) from Egypt." This "going free" is the desired state for the individual; it is what God strove to do for us. Indentured servitude is an affront to God.

An example of callousness to another's humanity has come to my attention from an unlikely source. A popular late night comedy show (The Colbert Report, Jan. 22, 2008) recently showed part of a documentary film called I Am Somebody directed by Madeline Anderson. The film is about the April 1969 strike of hospital workers against the Medical College Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina. Four hundred workers, all black and mainly women, were off the job for one hundred days fighting for equal pay for equal work. The strikers from District 1199 faced hostile neighbors and a hostile government. Civil rights leaders came to their aid, and what began as a labor dispute ended up as a struggle for social equality. At a press conference after the settlement, a reporter asked one of the workers what the strike had accomplished. Her powerful reply still echoes in my ears: "We gained recognition as human beings."

How does this fit in with the parashat Mishpatim?

It may be said that the Torah viewed slavery as an institution that needed humanizing. This became practical because the ancient Near East was populated on the whole by small free-holders, who treated a serf generally as a member of the family. A serf was a domestic servant rather than an indentured slave (as in Roman or early American society). In contrast to other contemporary or even later cultures, the Torah insisted on stressing the humanity of the serf, a person endowed with rights and entitled to dignity.

W. Gunther Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary

Mishpatim is just the beginning, the baby step that would eventually be the giant leap for all humanity: the recognition of the eved as a human being. The book of Exodus is starting point, there is more discomforting material in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Nonetheless, it is in this latter book that the offense of the institution of slavery becomes even clearer, for here the indentured servant is called achicha, your brother (Deuteronomy 15:12).

Given all of this, we can claim that the Torah is describing an institution that existed in ancient times. We can say that there was an emphasis on the slave as a person not as property. In spite of this, we are still left with a most uncomfortable feeling in our kishkes (guts): Our beloved Torah deals with a matter that we find morally repugnant.

Our covenant dealing with the treatment of others is based on the memory of Egyptian bondage. Simply put, we are not to do that to others. Pesach is z'man heruteinu, the season of our freedom – what greater reminder do we need of this basic dignity that God has lovingly bestowed upon us?

What can we do when we are faced with such an obstacle? We must wrestle with the text. The beauty of Torah is that each generation can find something that speaks to it in Torah, something that was always there, but waiting for the right moment to be discovered. Waiting for humanity to mature and a particular sensibility to arise in us, thus making it possible to teach us a new lesson that was there all along, just waiting for the right moment to be revealed. After all the discussion about the treatment of slaves and indentured servants, one of the most powerful statements on freedom in the Torah is found in Deuteronomy: You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. He shall live with you in any place he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill-treat him. (Deuteronomy 23:16-17). We cannot turn our backs on someone seeking freedom. A slave in ancient times, an oppressed individual today – we are commanded to act on behalf of all people created in the Divine image. That is how we serve God.

How are we doing? According to the iAbolish American Anti-slavery Group there are 27 million people in the world who will not have a taste of anything close to Shabbat rest, this week or any time in the foreseeable future. The stories on this website are horrifying, as are those at the Center of the Modern American Abolitionist Movement website Free the Slaves.

The discomfort of knowing that the Torah deals with slavery is nothing in comparison to knowing we live in a world where this institution still exists. Every Shabbat we recite the Kiddush recalling our Exodus from Egypt. It is only because we are free that we can celebrate this sacred day. Shabbat cannot be fully realized until every person is able to celebrate their own freedom.

Shabbat shalom,
MS