Is Slavery Preferable to the Danger of the Unknown? Parshat Mishpatim

In my weekly class, we finished studying parshat Yitro and began the opening of parshat mishpatim.  I’m usually not in sync with the parsha, but this week I was. I pointed out to them that when I was a student in the 60s at JTSA, I studied parshat mishpatim for an entire semester, with commentaries of course, and I sat all the way in the back, because our teacher smoked cigarettes the whole time. Those were the days. The previous week, I pointed out that the most difficult commandment to obey was that of not coveting what is not yours. Keeping that in mind, we read the opening verses of parshat mishpatim.

THE RULES CONCERNING A HEBREW SLAVE

When you acquire a Hebrew slave, that person shall serve six years—and shall go free in the seventh year, without payment. If [a male slave] came single, he shall leave single; if he had a wife, his wife shall leave with him.

If his master gave him a wife, and she has borne him children, the wife and her children shall belong to the master, and he shall leave alone.

But if the slave declares, “I love my master, and my wife and children: I do not wish to go free,” his master shall take him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall then remain his master’s slave for life (Exodus 21:1-6).

At this point no one connected these verses with the idea of coveting what is not ours, so I’ll return to this later. Many of them were appalled that there was slavery among the Israelites so soon after they, the former slaves, had been freed from slavery. They associated it with the justification of slavery in America and the use of slave women as breeders, whose children were then sold. When we came to the slave’s declaration, they thought it honorable that the slave did not want to leave his family behind. However, we also noted the order in which the slave expresses his love: he loves his master first, and only then his wife and children. And he makes it clear he does not want to go free. This is more than just love of family. The slave prefers to be a slave, branded like an animal, for the rest of his life—and presumably that would include the life of his family, who would now never have a chance to be bought out from slavery if he were to earn enough money. Why would someone choose slavery over freedom? Especially someone who has just been freed by God from the Land of Egypt?

THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN

I believe it has something to do with the fear of the unknown. Many of us are satisfied with what we have; we are complacent. It is difficult to make changes. The other night, I spoke to a friend who had just downsized from a huge home to a two-bedroom sheltered living facility. To me, just the thought of doing so is a nightmare. I used to look at homes without stairs and very much wanted to live in a simple two-bedroom unit. I looked at advertisements to get a sense of the prices of facilities, but then stopped in my tracks—this was my form of coveting what I did not have. We all covet what our friends and neighbors have—including good health, youth, attentive children, successful careers, supportive circles of friends. Our slave, who loves his master more than he loves his freedom, is afraid to take steps out to the unknown. He may be one of those who complained to Moses, about how it was better to be slaves back in Egypt, rather than be out in the desert without any water:

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites caught sight of the Egyptians advancing upon them. Greatly frightened, the Israelites cried out to יהוה. And they said to Moses, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?” (Exodus 14:10-12).

A midrash comments on the verse “And they said to Moses, ‘There are no graves in Egypt, take us to die in the wilderness.’”

They met up with Moses and Aaron, who were standing before them, and said, “We regretted our slavery in Egypt, but our death in the wilderness is worse for us than our slavery in Egypt. We regretted the death of our brothers in the plague of darkness. Our death in the wilderness is worse for us than the death of our brothers in the plague of darkness. Our brothers were killed in Egypt and were buried there, but we will end up being the corpses of our enemies, in the desert, without a proper burial place” (Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:11).

These last words are especially frightening to us as we still await the fate of all of the Bibas family, whose mother Shiri is not among the remains of the dead bodies returned today, though her two boys were.

Then there were those who nostalgically remembered the wonderful food back in Egypt:

The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!” (Numbers 11: 4-6).

Notice it is the “riffraff” who are complaining, but they are probably expressing what everyone thought. And can we really blame them? The vicissitudes of the present make us nostalgic for rosy colored past remembrances. At least with slavery, we have a known master, three somewhat square meals a day, shelter, a loving wife and children. So why go out and be free? Freedom can even be seen as a punishment. We now have to go out on our own and make our own way without any help or guidance.

THE ISSUE OF COVETING

Perhaps the problem is that the slave covets the wrong thing. The past; his youth—when he did not have to make decisions; all was done for him. People who are weak often prefer to stay weak and even support vocally those whose interest is to keep them weak. The Hebrew commandment says:

לֹ֥א תַחְמֹ֖ד בֵּ֣ית רֵעֶ֑ךָ {ס}  לֹֽא־תַחְמֹ֞ד אֵ֣שֶׁת רֵעֶ֗ךָ וְעַבְדּ֤וֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ֙ וְשׁוֹר֣וֹ וַחֲמֹר֔וֹ וְכֹ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר לְרֵעֶֽךָ׃ {פ}

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house: you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox or ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s (Exodus 20:14).

The root חמד is not necessary something that is bad: it can also mean to take pleasure in, to delight in, to be desirable, to be something precious. We say in the shacharit shabbat morning prayer that God did not give us to the other nations, that He loved us; that He chose us; we should all rejoice on the Shabbat;

וְלא נְתַתּו ה’ אֱלהֵינוּ לְגויֵי הָאֲרָצות. וְלא הִנְחַלְתּו מַלְכֵּנוּ לְעובְדֵי פְסִילִים. וְגַם בִּמְנוּחָתו לא יִשְׁכְּנוּ עֲרֵלִים. כִּי לְיִשרָאֵל עַמְּךָ נְתַתּו בְּאַהֲבָה. לְזֶרַע יַעֲקב אֲשֶׁר בָּם בָּחָרְתָּ: עַם מְקַדְּשֵׁי שְׁבִיעִי. כֻּלָּם יִשבְּעוּ וְיִתְעַנְּגוּ מִטּוּבֶךָ. וּבַשְּׁבִיעִי רָצִיתָ בּו וְקִדַּשְׁתּו. חֶמְדַת יָמִים אותו קָרָאתָ. זֵכֶר לְמַעֲשה בְרֵאשִׁית:

With love, You have given Shabbat to the people Israel, the descendants of Jacob, whom You have chosen. The people who sanctify the seventh day shall feel fulfilled and shall delight in Your goodness, for You Yourself were pleased with the seventh day and sanctified it, calling it the most beloved of days, a symbol of the work of creation. 

Furthermore, חמודי is a term of endearment, equivalent to “honey” or “darling”. The pets who live with us are called, חיות מחמד, to distinguish them from non-domesticated animals.  So even though coveting has a negative connotation, let’s remember that we all want things, especially love. My mother, may her memory be a blessing, was famous for saying: “What you want and what you get are two different stories.” We all jokingly even thought of putting it on her grave stone. Like many of us, she wanted things that were not attainable, but she worked hard and saw to it that her daughters were educated and she lived to share her life story with her six adult grandchildren. There is nothing wrong with wanting things to be better; we should not accept as engraved in stone that we should be satisfied with our lot, even if The Ethics of our Fathers tells us, איזהו עשיר, השמח בחלקו—the person who is rich, is the one who is satisfied with what he has (Pirkei Avot  4:1). Satisfaction can lead to complacency; with not trying new things, with giving up. We should not be satisfied with what is; we should go out on the streets and protest—as so many people are doing. God has given us many gifts—yet He seems to restrict us from using these gifts by telling us not to want more.

What does this all have to do with our slave, who has given up his freedom? I think the slave lacks imagination to think beyond his love of master. He does not ask questions; he accepts the reality of what is, as what it should be. He confuses description, with prescription. He cannot envision change, or a better world. He does not covet anything except the safety of slavery. He has missed the point of the Garden of Eden story. We were meant to eat the forbidden fruit—it was put there so that we would become autonomous human beings. True, it is not easy to grow up, but that’s life and there is nothing wrong with a little bit of coveting what others seem to have—that is, a better life.

Shabbat shalom.