Shnayim Mikra

The name of this parsha means "laws" and that sums it up quite nicely. Most of the parsha is taken up by a variety of laws that G-d commands through Moshe.

It starts with the laws of the Jewish slave, though the term "slave" is unfortunate, as the Torah's definition bears no resemblance to what the Jews endured in Egypt or, for that matter, black slavery in America. A Jewish slave was a person who was sentenced by the courts to pay off a debt, specifically if he was convicted for stealing. His sentence was six years, after which his slate was clean and he was free to go. If he was married, his wife goes free with him, but if his master married him to a non-Jewish slave girl, then she remained behind.

Jewish slavery was not an oppressive situation - it was a job with room and board. The slave might want to stay on after his term expired. If so, the master took him to the court, who pierced the cartilage of the slave's ear as a sign of his chosen station. Then, the slave would serve until the next Jubilee year, however long that might be. (The Jubilee occurred every fifty years and in that year all debts were canceled and slaves went free. We'll read more about that in parshas Behar, in the Book of Leviticus chapter 25.)

If a person became absolutely impoverished and was unable to support his family, he was permitted to "sell" a minor daughter as a servant girl. This is a different arrangement. In this scenario, the master is like he's betrothed to the girl, whom he must either marry or release. He is not allowed to re-sell her to another (and the father may only sell her to someone who would make a suitable husband). The master could designate her as a wife for his son instead of himself and, if he does, he must treat her like any other daughter-in-law. If he does marry her, he may only marry another wife if doing so does not diminish this girl's situation as far as food, clothes or marital relations. If the master can't abide by these terms, the girl goes free.

Murder is a capital crime, but manslaughter is punished with exile, as will be detailed in later parshas. Intentionally wounding one's own parent is a capital crime, as is kidnapping and selling another person. If someone injures another person in a fight, he must pay damages.

Killing a slave is also a capital crime, but only if he dies as a direct result of the injury. Causing a woman to miscarry results in a monetary penalty, but if the woman herself dies, it's a capital offense. Appropriate damages are paid for the loss of an eye, a tooth or other limb. (This is the meaning of "an eye for an eye, etc." - the PRICE of an eye or other organ! Throughout the Bible, we never see someone have a hand or foot hacked off by the courts and no authority suggests that we should.) If one knocks out a slave's eye or tooth, the slave goes free.

If an ox kills a person, the ox is stoned; it may not be eaten. The owner is not punished unless the ox had a prior history of goring people. If he was warned and failed to take precautions, he really deserves to die but, mercifully, he is permitted to pay financial penalties that will spare his life. If the ox gores a slave, the fine is 30 silver shekels, payable to the slave's owner.

If someone digs a hole and an animal falls in and dies, he must pay the owner for the animal. If an ox gores another person's ox, the live ox is sold and they split the monetary value of both oxen. But, again, if the ox had a history of goring, then the negligent owner must pay for the dead ox.

If someone steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells it, he must repay the owner with five oxen or four sheep, respectively.

If a thief is caught breaking into a house and is killed, it's considered self-defense. If he's killed on the way out, it's murder because the home owner is no longer in danger. A thief must repay what he stole and if he can't, he is sold to work it off. If he's found with a stolen object (including live animals), he must pay double what he stole.

If a person lets his animals graze on someone else's land, he must repay with his best produce. A person who lets a fire rage out of control must pay for damages.

An unpaid watchmen from whom the object being watched was stolen must take an oath to that effect. A paid watchman is responsible for theft, though not necessarily for other mishaps. A borrower is responsible for mishaps, but a renter isn't.

If a man seduces a minor girl, he must pay her dowry and marry her. If the girl or her father refuses, then the man just pays the dowry.

Sorcery, bestiality and idolatry are right out.

One may not oppress or mistreat widows, orphans and converts; G-d takes special interest in them.

It's a mitzvah to lend money to people who need it but one may not charge interest or take a person's garment as collateral. (G-d also pays special attention to oppressed borrowers.)

One may not curse the judges (possibly referring to G-d Himself) or other leaders. One must be careful to fulfill holy obligations and may not eat an animal that was killed by predators.

Don't be an accomplice to evil. Don't show favoritism in court. Return lost objects to your enemy and help him unload an overburdened donkey.

The Jews are enjoined to distance themselves from falsehood. A person who has not been found guilty may not be punished; if he's really guilty, G-d will take care of him. Bribery is strictly prohibited because it colors the vision of even the most impartial person.

Every seventh year, the fields must not be worked and the poor are free to take what they want. (More about this later.) Similarly, we must refrain from labor every seventh day, the Sabbath.

We shouldn't even speak the names of idols.

There are three festivals each year: Pesach (Passover), Shavuos ("Feast of Weeks") and Succos ("Tabernacles"). All males must go offer sacrifices in the place to be designated.

Meat and milk combinations are right out.

G-d says that He will send an angel to lead the people into the land. (We'll meet him in the Book of Joshua, chapter 5.) The people should follow all he says because the angel will brook no insubordination. If they listen, then G-d's angel will mow down the Jews' enemies.

When they enter the land, they must eradicate the idols and serve only G-d, Who will make them healthy and prosperous.

If the Jews obey G-d's will in the land, then women will bear healthy children and people will live full lives. The Canaanite nations will fear G-d and He will send hornets to drive them out. He will take His time doing so, however, because if they all left at once, wild animals would overpopulate. G-d will drive the Canaanites out gradually, enabling the Jews to move in and fill the land, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

The Jews were not to make treaties with the Canaanite nations. To do so will lead to idolatry.

To seal the deal, Moshe was to approach the mountain with Aharon, Nadav and Avihu (two of Aharon's sons) and 70 elders. Moshe was then to ascend alone.

Moshe told the people all the laws G-d had communicated through him. The people responded that they accepted, unconditionally. Moshe wrote down what G-d had said, namely the Torah until this point. The next morning, he built an altar and the first-borns, who served as priests at this time, offered sacrifices.

Moshe read to the people from the Torah as had been written down so far. They replied with one of the most famous phrases in the Torah, "na'aseh v'nishma," "we will do and we will hear." This means that they agreed to do all G-d had said, after which they would study in an effort to understand the mitzvos. (Understanding a mitzva is not a prerequisite. If anything, one can best come to understand mitzvos by doing them!)

Moshe and the other designated parties approached the mountain. They saw a vision of G-d's glory and under his anthropomorphic "feet" there was something like a sapphire slab, as clear as the sky. (I'm not even going to try to explain that one. Let's just cross-reference it with the first chapter of Ezekiel and leave it at that.) Despite the vision, the others did not reach Moshe's spiritual level, so they celebrated the event with a feast. (This is as opposed to Moshe, who was able to go 40 days and nights without food and drink on Mt. Sinai, as we shall see in parshas Ki Sisa.)

G-d beckoned Moshe up the mountain, so he could receive the Tablets (luchos) with the Law on them. Moshe delegated Aharon and Chur as leaders in his absence.

Moshe reached the mountain's peak and discovered the cloud of G-d's glory covering it. Moshe dwelled in the cloud for six days and, on the seventh, G-d called to him from the cloud. (To the people below, the cloud looked like fire.) Moshe would remain on the mountain for 40 days.

This week’s Torah reading, the first after telling us of the greatest mass revelation ever claimed by any people, starts with the laws of slaves. Especially considering our current revulsion for the whole institution, we might find it odd verging on problematic that the Torah would open its presentation of Jewish law with this. Stranger is Nachmanides’s claim that we start with it because of its significance.

The Incident

The haftarah opens with the story of a covenant made by the people and Zedekiah, the last king of the First Temple, in which they agreed to free their Jewish slaves (who were being held longer than the prescribed term). Soon after, though, the people violated the pact and took their slaves back.

The first part of God’s reaction, verses 12-16, recaps the events—the original violation of Torah law, the covenant, and the reneging of the promise. At the simplest level, the text portrays the richer, stronger class of the era of the Destruction as not only willing to enslave the poor among them, but as so addicted to slavery that they could not resist re-enslaving them despite their best intentions otherwise.

The Talmud adds an element by assuming that the freeing of slaves here was actually the yovel freeing, which came once every fifty years. Since those laws only apply when all the tribes are living in their section of the Land of Israel, the Talmud has to also assert that Jeremiah brought back members of each of the Ten Lost Tribes, exiled by Assyria many years earlier.

That yovel is in effect only when we have the Tribes resident in their parts of the Land, shapes the meaning of the requirement to free slaves in that year. Moderns tend to read the yovel obligation as expressing an avoidance of permanent slavery, at least for Jews. If that were the whole truth, making it apply only when all the tribes are in their assigned regions is counterintuitive.

It seems more reasonable to say that the freeing of slaves at yovel depends on the context of a certain kind of society. In contrast, truly fundamental Jewish obligations—loving God, imitating God’s Attributes, studying Torah—apply to all social circumstances. To be living a full ideal Jewish life in the Land, apparently, means subsuming oneself, somewhat, to tribal affiliation. Something about that experience makes it important to free slaves every fifty years.

Who Cares About Yovel?

Without the Talmud, it seems clear we would have assumed the case was one of inappropriate buying and holding of slaves, without any connection to yovel. The Sages brought that in here, I believe, because of the text’s use of the word deror for the freedom to be given the slaves. When the prophet uses the same word when announcing that God will release sword, pestilence, and famine as punishment for their failures, it emphasizes this connection. As the Liberty Bell made famous, the word deror is how the Torah describes the yovel release of slaves.

Just as one more point of interest: the Talmud in Shabbat relates the word deror to a free or wild bird, which treats habited and inhabited areas equally. If so, deror signals indifference to distinctions of types of space or, perhaps, personal status. That we only call for deror when the Tribes are accepting their assigned places of residence highlights the dialectic in a Jew’s experience of boundaries.

The Meaning of Freedom

Deror freedom, the ability to throw off the yoke of slavery (or of a prior sale of land), is only properly given to those who operate on a backdrop of a deeper awareness of the lines that need to be drawn in society.

It is not freedom to do as one wants, it is a freedom to contribute freely while knowing which boundaries are inviolable. In a society that respects limits of places of residence, the more restrictive realm of slavery—which, after all, also teaches limits, just in a more drastic way, with significant other costs—can be made temporary rather than permanent. In a society that does not have that sense, there is less push for the freeing of slaves.

The ideal Jewish society re-makes itself every fifty years, gives a renewed chance to all its inhabitants to contribute and succeed, by freeing slaves and repatriating land. Failure to undo those restrictions, God says, will lead Him to undo other restrictions, the ones ordinarily placed on the destructive forces of Nature.

In the Talmud’s reading, Jeremiah’s plainsense complaint about re-enslaving people becomes a broader indictment of their failure to use their social differentiations—by Tribe—to allow them to periodically give a new chance to society’s failures.

The Closing Verses

The closing two verses surprise us by going back to chapter 33. The commentators agree that the verses mean to correlate God’s faithfulness to His covenants (day and night and heaven and earth, or, according to some statements in The Sages, circumcision) to His concern with having a ruler for the Jewish people descended from David, and, perhaps, a priest from the family of Aaron.

The idea that the rule of David and his descendants signals the proper workings of Nature fits well with the themes we have already seen. When people order themselves properly, God orders the universe properly, preventing the advent of chaos. A king from the family of David likewise contributes to insuring the proper ordering of the (human) world and is therefore intimately connected to God’s promises to maintain the order of the natural world.

All of which supports Nachmanides’s claim that slavery is put first because of its significance. In our haftarah, slavery is seen to be problematic in its practice, but not in theory. Just as Nature needs limits, and the Davidic king provides them, slavery can be a workable system when operating within a yovel society, one with sharp limits woven into its fabric. The failure to adhere to those limits can, in the extreme, lead to the loss of other important limits, bringing on us the destruction that comes with that loss.