EXODUS XXI:1-XXIV:18

NORMALIZATION OF SLAVERY

The first instruction in these chapters refers to the laws that should govern slavery. The Torah emphasizes that there is no slavery forever. The slave is released after completing 6 years of servitude. However, in the case of the master who provides him with a wife with whom he forms a family, the slave can request that his period of servitude be extended, when he declares “I love my master, my wife and my children”, according to the sacred text. In this case it can continue until the Jubilee year, on which date it must necessarily be released, because human beings should only be the “servants of the Creator”, but not the servants of other servants.

Why does the litany of laws that characterize this section of the Torah begin with those that must govern the slave? When it is assumed that the Torah uses language that is immediately understandable by human beings, it can be argued that the slave is an example of the most vulnerable and helpless being in society. The Torah, therefore, protects him because he is the one who needs the most protection, especially when one considersthat slavery existed for millennia, before and after the giving of the Torah.

An additional compelling and probable reason is the immediate antecedent of the Hebrew people who had spent 210 years of slavery in Egypt. It was imperative, therefore, that a framework of protection for the slave be enacted. In addition to having sympathy for the slave, the Hebrew people could have empathy for his situation. With the word “empathy” we emphasize that he could put himself directly in the situation of his neighbor, feel in his own flesh the pain of others, because he had gone through the same experience during the long period of Egyptian slavery. In this way, the Hebrew people were sensitized so that they could identify totally with the less fortunate.

The patriarchs went through periods of famine so that they could understand what is meant by the lack of sustenance, the absence of bread on the table. During the Passover Seder meal, the middle Matsah is broken and one half is saved for the Afikoman with which that night’s meal is concluded. The Matsah is called Lechem Oni, the bread of poverty, because the poor almost never have a complete bread. He also does not consume all the bread he has now; he keeps a piece because he is not sure if he will have food the next day. The survivors of the Nazi concentration camps know that: they always save a crumb for another day, just in case.

In some cases, the slave who rises to power is often crueler than those who have never known servitude. Aware of the possible tricks, he becomes a stern overseer who stifles any attempt at freedom. For this reason, the Torah insists and warns Vezachartah ki eved hayita beMitzrayim, “and you will remember that you were a slave in Egypt” for the double reason: the experience of slavery that must serve to fully understand its dehumanizing effect and, at the same time, to make the Hebrew the bearer of the message of freedom. Because only under the cloak of freedom can the imperatives, the Mitsvot of the Torah, be fulfilled. 

The exodus from Egypt allowed them to have the time to dedicate to fulfilling God’s will. The chapters of Mishpatimcontain many rules that seem reasonable, laws indispensable for coexistence that can be derived from a logical process. Their Divine origin gives them an additional nuance and adds a fundamental condition to them. It prevents, or at least hinders its manipulation, that its meaning is distorted at the convenience of the person or of some authoritarian whose purpose is to impose his will on others.

MITZVAH: ORDINANCE OF THE TORAH IN THIS PARSHA

CONTAINS 24  POSITIVE MITSVOT AND 29 PROHIBITIONS

42. Exodus 21:2 Laws concerning a Hebrew slave

43. Exodus 21:8 The conjugal status of a Hebrew slave

44. Exodus 21:8 Redemption of a Hebrew slave girl

45. Exodus 21:8 Whoever buys a Hebrew slave girl from his father may not sell her

46. Exodus 21:10 Do not diminish or deny the wife: food, clothing, marital rights

47. Exodus 21:12 The court is to execute by strangulation the one who deserves this form of death

48. Exodus 21:15 Do not strike the father or mother who deserves this form of death

49. Exodus 21:18 Laws of punishment

50. Exodus 21:10 The court is to execute by the sword the one who deserves this form of death

51. Exodus 21:18 The court’s obligation to award damages caused by domestic animals

52. Exodus 21:28 Do not eat of the ox sentenced to be stoned

53. Exodus 21:33 Obligation of the court to award damage caused by a well

54. Exodus 21:37 Court forced to impose payment on the thief

55. Exodus 22:4 Court forced to impose damage caused by a domestic animal for grazing or trampling

56. Exodus 22:5 Court forced to award fire damages

57. Exodus 22:6 Court forced to award payment to a custodian

58. Exodus 22:8 Court forced to adjudicate both litigants

59. Exodus 22:9 Court forced into custody receiving payment or other custody

60. Exodus 22:13 Court bound to adjudicate case of one who borrows an object for use

61. Exodus 22:15 Court forced to adjudicate case of a seducer

62. Exodus 22:17 Not allowing life to the sorceress

63. Exodus 22:20 Do not verbally oppress one who converts to Judaism

64. Exodus 22:20 Do not deceive him who converts to Judaism in cases of property

65. Exodus 22:21 Do not mistreat an orphan or a widow

66. Exodus 22:24 Lending to the poor

67. Exodus 22:24 Do not insist on the payment of debt to the poor who have no means to pay

68. Exodus 22:24 Failing to help the lender or creditor foreclose on an interest-bearing loan

69. Exodus 22:27 Do not curse the judge

70. Exodus 22:27 Do not curse the Name of God

71. Exodus 22:27 Do not curse the ruler

72. Exodus 22:28 Do not set apart the tithe in the wrong order

73. Exodus 22:30 Do not eat from a qualified animal treiphah

74. Exodus 23:1 Not hearing a plea in court if the opposing party is not present

75. Exodus 23:1 The sinner must not bear witness

76. Exodus 23:2 A capital punishment case should not be condemned by a majority of a single judge

77. Exodus 23:2 A judge who pleads innocence in the case of capital punishment should not then plead guilt

78. Exodus 23:2 Following the majority in legal decisions

79. Exodus 23:3 No mercy should be shown for the poor during the judgment

80. Exodus 23:5 Take away heavy burden from your neighbor’s animal

81. Exodus 23:6 Do not pervert righteousness in the case of a sinner

82. Exodus 23:7 Not deciding a capital punishment case through probabilities

83. Exodus 23:8 The judge should not receive a bribe

84. Exodus 23:11 The obligation of Shemitah to leave the produce of the land without an owner in the Sabbath year (seventh year)

85. Exodus 23:12 Rest on Shabbat

86. Exodus 23:13 Do not swear by calling on an idol

87. Exodus 23:13 Do not lead the Jewish people into idolatry

88. Exodus 23:14 Bringing offerings to the Holy Temple on the feasts

89. Exodus 23:18 Do not make the Passover offering  while still possessing chamets (leavened food)

90. Exodus 23:18 Do not allow parts of the Passover offering to stay awake

91. Exodus 23:19 Bringing the Bikkurim (First Fruits) to the Temple 

92. Exodus 23:19 Do not cook meat in milk

93. Exodus 23:32 Not to make treaties with the seven nations that were to be eradicated from the Land of Israel, nor with idolaters

94. Exodus 23:33 Do not allow idolaters to settle in the Land of Israel