Our parshah, called Mishpatim, opens this week with these words, and then goes on to enumerate the beginning of many many more rules and laws and ordinances which continue throughout the Torah. Eventually, according to tradition, they total 613.
I'll admit that my eyes tend to roll a lot at the mention of rules. And we all know that there are many people who are strict rule followers. Oh, it has its place, for sure. Just think if we all entered the roadway and decided there were no rules and we could all just drive willy nilly however we wanted? The roads would not be safe. There must be rules for everyone to follow, the same set of rules, in fact, applying to each person. No exceptions. Nothing different for those with red cars than those with blue cars. Equally applied, to the letter. A red light always means stop, and the speed limit always means the speed limit, for safety.
I get that.
After the Big Moment of the giving of the Ten Biggies (you might know them as the Ten Commandments, and the literal rendering is actually the Ten Utterances; whatever we call them, you know the ones...yeah, those...) at Mt. Sinai, why did we need more rules, rules that got way down deep into the weeds?
In fact, the very first rule detailed immediately after the opening sentence deals with the Israelites having slaves.
Did you read that?
Wait, what?
These people, who themselves had just been slaves and longed for freedom, themselves slaveowners? Did they bring slaves with them across the Red Sea? Were their slaves from their own people, or other people they had taken as slaves?
Questions, question, my head whirs with questions. And why is the issue of having slaves the first law given after the Ten Biggies?
Well, I don't have all those answers, yet anyway. But I do know this:
First, while slavery is not at all tolerable in our society in this day, it was an unfortunate fact of life back then, a few thousand years ago, and for almost all of human history as we know it. Technically, here in the U.S., slavery wasn't abolished until the late 19th Century CE. That's not all that long ago. And sadly, human slavery has not completely disappeared; it's gone underground.
Second, slavery was not just something done to or by the Hebrews. Even several thousand years later, the Christian New Testament supports the notion of slavery. (Onesimus was a slave of Philemon, who had run away and tried to take refuge with Paul. Paul returned him to Philemon with a letter, which is part of the canon of the Christian New Testament, known, of course, as the Epistle to Philemon. Paul refused to give Onesimus refuge and instead sent him back to his owner.)
Third, let's look at what the law in the Torah here in Mishpatim says about slavery, even though this was written ages ago when slavery was an accepted fact:
The Torah tells the Israelites to set their slaves free after seven years, or immediately if his master has injured him. Additionally, it also stipulates that Israelite slave owners should grant their slaves complete rest and freedom one day in seven.
As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks notes, "While these laws do not abolish slavery, they do create the conditions under which people will eventually learn to abolish slavery. Furthermore, they turn slavery from an existential fate to a temporary condition. Slavery is not what you are or how you were born, but something that has happened to you for a while and from which you will one day be liberated."
While I of course do not in any way condone slavery or the kind of mindset that supports such a thing, the point of all of this is to look at how profound-and-forward-thinking-for-its-day these new laws were for the Israelites. There is a basic humanity underlying them. That was incredibly progressive for that time!
Moving away from the slavery laws, we move down a bit and read this one: “If you take a neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you must restore it to him before nightfall because that’s his only covering and where is he going to sleep? When he cries to me I will hear, for I am gracious.” (Exodus 22:25-26)
Here we see that it is imperative for kindness to supersede the rules of property. Empathy for the neighbor who might shiver through a cold night is more important than a strict following of the rules.
I am especially more cognizant of this as I write today, when half the continent is on the downhill slide into becoming a deep freeze. Having a brother who has often suffered homelessness, I worry about those who are exposed to the elements, all year round, and even more so tonight.
It's so easy to become complacent and take my warm shelter and stocked pantry for granted, and to still find something about which to complain.
Perhaps this is the slavery of our time.... to be so enslaved by our privileges that we take them for granted, and have no empathy or compassion for those who struggle and have far less of even the most humane, basic necessities.
Bottom line, I see these more detailed laws which follow the Ten Biggies as necessary for laying a foundation upon which, over time, we could move from a society which condoned slavery, then tolerated slavery, to finally looking underneath all of that to find, at the very heart of all those rules rules rules, empathy, compassion, and a shared humanity.
Rules can bring order to chaos, and we must learn to use rules properly. When we have outgrown them for the better, such as no longer condoning slavery, then we have done a far better thing than obeying the letter of the law while ignoring the humanity, empathy, compassion, and kindness underneath.
Today would be a good day to make a small donation online or locally to a homeless shelter or food pantry, or arrange for a pickup of items you no longer use. We have miles to go before our winter is over.
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