Mishpatim
Ex. 21:1 - 24:18
Précis: Having received the
Ten Commandments (in the previous parasha), Moses now reveals ordinances (mishpatim)
needed to implement a comprehensive system of laws. The first group of
commandments (mitzvot) relate to the rights of servants (slaves),
followed by rules about murder, crimes against parents, personal injury law,
offenses against property, and bailment. A list of moral offenses follows, including
seduction, witchcraft, sexual perversion, polytheism, and oppression of the
“widow, the orphan, and the stranger among you.” The parasha also includes the
command to observe a sabbatical year, the Shabbat, and then lists the
requirements for the observance of the pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot,
and Sukkot). The command not to boil a kid in its mothers’ milk (a key proof
text for the laws of kashrut) is mentioned, and at the conclusion of the
parasha, we find a ceremony where the People, represented by Moses and 70
elders, have an encounter with the Divine Presence and accept the laws and the
Covenant.
Ex. 21:2 “When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve
six years; in the seventh year he shall go free without payment.”
Rabbi Jonathan Spira-Savett has written about the concept of
slavery in Jewish History (MyJewishLearning.org, 2/10/15), noting that
immediately after the Exodus and Revelation at Sinai, the next parasha begins
with laws concerning Hebrew slaves. How, he asks, can this people be permitted to own slaves, having so recently been slaves themselves?
As a partial answer, he points to the following word “y’shalachenu” (he shall go
free) This word is from the same root in Hebrew that Moses demanded of Pharaoh:
“Shalach et ami” (Let my people go!). So, we have a connection between God’s act of
freeing an entire people, and a master freeing his slave.
In its
historical time, the Torah presumed a society where there were slaves, who had
sold themselves because of debts or poverty. This law does not condone slavery,
but rather demands that the slave be freed.
Of course, slavery is (thankfully) no longer tolerated. On the other hand, we
do tolerate workers in foreign countries making our goods
while working in conditions which are close to slavery. We also tolerate
extraordinary income disparities within our own country
as well.
We
are commanded to free the oppressed around us, and to set a limit to the time
we are willing to tolerate inequity and injustice before we rid ourselves of
this kind of slavery. The law of the Hebrew slave freed in the seventh year
begins the law code of Mishpatim. The code ends with a demand not to
mistreat the stranger. These are bookends of a code of conduct to which we
should aspire.
