Shemot: Part-Time Slaves

 Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil. -Edmund Burke

It is a biblical command for the Jewish people to remember the slavery we endured in Egypt and the subsequent miraculous exodus from the bondage of Egypt. Though history has shown that there are different degrees of slavery, the Jewish tradition is that Egyptian slavery was particularly cruel.

Based on that tradition, Egyptian slavery has been depicted widely in both books and film to the extent that we can readily imagine our ancestors plodding in the mud pits, under the harsh Egyptian sun, and the harsher taskmaster’s whip, as permanent prisoners of a tyrannical regime.

However, the Bechor Shor on Exodus 1:11 adds some nuance to the terms of enslavement that may not have been apparent to us. He explains that the enslavement was not constant but rather lasted for a few months at a time. He picks up on the parallel description of the much later “enslavement” which King Solomon decreed for the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. King  Solomon “taxed” the people, taking 30,000 men who would work for the king for a month, and then they would return home for two months, though we have no record that it was a particularly harsh situation for the conscripted men.

In a related vein, the Bechor Shor explains, the Egyptians forced the Jews into hard labor for several months at a time, and then let them go home to their families for a period, so they can support their own households until they were forced into hard labor again for a number of months. This is a cycle that continued for the long decades of Egyptian bondage. In the Egyptian case, even though the Jewish slaves had some “time off” it was still an extremely oppressive and dispiriting situation.

May we be cautious of the servitudes we get ourselves into – even if they’re not full-time.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

In honor of our nephew, Mordechai Tzvi Kahen’s Bar-Mitzvah. Mazal Tov!