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JSN Parsha Team
Parshat Mishpatim, February 2012

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As Jews, we experienced first-hand the oppression of slavery in ancient Egypt. And, as Americans, we share the feeling of national guilt for the sin of African-American enslavement. Jewish Americans have no lack of moral clarity on this issue. Slavery is the ultimate abuse of basic human rights, and it is evil. Period.

It is therefore deeply disturbing to discover at the beginning of our parsha that the Torah condones slavery. Here we find, as the introduction to the laws of justice, no less, regulations for the purchase and release of slaves. Less than two months after the Exodus and we’re building slave markets? After all the pain and suffering we experienced in Egypt, how could the Torah possibly permit such a thing?

The Mechilta (one of the oldest compilations of halachic midrash) explains that when our parsha speaks of the purchase of a slave it’s not talking about buying a slave off the block. It’s talking about buying a slave from the Jewish court.

We are taught in our parsha, “[A thief] shall make restitution; if he has nothing, he shall be sold for his theft” (Shemot 22:2). When we catch a thief who is broke and unable to pay back the owner for what he stole, then the court puts him up for sale. The money raised by the sale goes towards payment for the theft, and the thief works off his debt as a slave.

This is no ordinary slavery. It’s not Egyptian style slavery, nor is it American style slavery. It’s a Jewish slavery, and it’s a friendly sort of slavery, if we can imagine such a thing. Firstly, the slave must be treated as the fellow Jew that he is. All the laws of interpersonal relationships are fully operative and it is forbidden to abuse him in any way. Not physically (Devarim 25:3) and not emotionally (Vayikra 25:16). Not only is abuse forbidden, but you must also love him, as it says, “Love your fellow as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18).

But it goes further than that. This “slave” gets special treatment, even beyond what you would be required to do for your fellow Jew. The Torah says, “for it is good for him with you” (Devarim 15:16), and the Talmud explains that to mean that he is to be “with you in food and with you in drink.” The Talmud elaborates: “We cannot have a situation where you’re eating white bread and he’s eating black bread, you’re drinking aged wine and he’s drinking young wine, and you’re sleeping on a mattress and he’s on hay. From here came the expression, ‘Whoever purchases a 

Jewish slave has bought himself a master!’” (Kiddushin 20a). It’s not just that oppressing a slave is forbidden; you must give him the same quality food, clothing, and shelter that you yourself enjoy.

The classic medieval commentary on the Talmud, Tosafot, wonders why the Talmud says that buying a slave is like buying a master. Your equal, yes, but why ‘master’? Quoting the Jerusalem Talmud, Tosafot points out that if you have only one pillow in the house then you must give it to your slave. You can’t use it because then you would have a pillow and he would be without one, and that is forbidden. For no one to get it would be ‘sodomite behavior,’ i.e., pointless cruelty. So the slave gets it. In that sense, your slave is your master. If there’s only one pillow, one steak, or one piece of cake, it’s his.

The Halacha mandates that a slave owner must elevate his slave to his own standard of living.Now we can understand why the Torah considers the possibility that a slave might want to stay beyond his maximum term of six years (see 21:5-6). There is an assumption that this guy will enjoy his pampered life as a slave!

Maybe we shouldn’t be calling this slavery at all. What we are looking at here is actually an excellent rehabilitation program for our thief. The Torah wants a nice Jewish family to adopt him and respect him as one of their own. By living with such people, and being the constant recipient of their graciousness and kindness, this thief will come to recognize the value of giving. Over time, he will develop into a giver like them and mature out of his old life as a taker.

It’s a win-win situation. The victim gets his money back, the thief gets rehabilitated, and it doesn’t cost the state a penny. This is the Jewish system. Should we compare that with the American system where we pay a fortune to put all the thieves together in a jail where they can work out in a gym and share notes before letting them back out on the streets?