Parshah Commentary
From the stories of Hagar and Joseph in Breishit to the grand tale of liberation from Egypt that unfolds over the first third of Shemot, slavery is one of the Torah’s major concerns. In our parshah, the subject once again takes center stage: Mishpatim’s collection of commandments begins with regulations regarding the “eved Ivri,” or “Hebrew slave.” The appearance of these laws seems incongruous or even shocking, coming so soon after the Exodus. How can we understand the perpetuation of this heinous institution by a society that has just been freed from its bonds?
Many commentators have framed this legislation as transitional, meant to slowly move society away from slavery toward an ultimate goal of abolition. These commentators often emphasize that the Torah mandates a six-year term limit that distinguishes this system of servitude from perpetual chattel slavery, and that later law collections in Vayikra and Devarim make it clear that the Hebrew slave deserves compassionate treatment. As the Bible scholar Robert Alter puts it in the notes on his own translation of this passage, “What is clearly involved is not chattel slavery but what amounts to a kind of indentured servitude. The Bible does not question this institution but sets certain limits on it, and, as one can see in the subsequent laws, the slave retains basic human rights.” This position has some merit, in part due to the semantic flexibility of the Hebrew term “eved,” which is applied to a wide spectrum of arrangements, including chattel slaves, personal servants, royal courtiers, and even the Israelite relationship to God. As the French anthropologist Alain Testart writes of the details supplied in Vayikra, “the respect owed them, the time limits on their service, their remaining among their fathers’ kinsmen, their inalienability, their redeemability—so many traits . . . make it impossible to consider them slaves.”
It would be nice if we could accept this argument, contentedly concluding that the Torah softens even the harshness of slavery. But to understand a given law, we must look not only at what it dictates directly, but also at the social reality it implies. And indeed, when we take a closer look at the underlying societal dynamics of the Hebrew slave, things get more complicated. Notably, the Torah does not directly answer the question of how this Hebrew slave came to be available for purchase. Rashi raises two possibilities: This person was either a thief who could not pay the penalties for stealing or a person who put himself up for sale out of economic desperation. In both cases, the Hebrew slave is a person facing harsh pressure and a hostile social world; beneath the comparatively gentle terms of his servitude lies a bleak reality.
The six-year term limit is also deceptively generous. At the end of his term, the Hebrew slave is given a choice: He may go free, or “if the slave should solemnly say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go free,’ his master shall . . . pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him perpetually.” It may be hard to imagine why one would elect to remain a slave forever, rather than try his luck out in the world. But it’s important to remember the relevant social contexts that may be at play: For one, familial attachments developed within his master’s household do not exist independently of his slave status, and he may be forced to choose between family and freedom. Moreover, his prospects for avoiding debt and poverty might be no better than six years ago. He may have made a sober assessment that servitude is his best chance at stability.
But coercion framed as choice is not really a choice; it renders its cruelty invisible and holds its victims responsible for their own submission. To be marked as a slave—in this case, physically so by a pierced ear—means forever advertising consent to one’s own degraded status. We can see a twisted moral order taking shape in the Hebrew slave’s path to permanent servitude: The slave is unfree because he has forsaken freedom. There is something ineluctably chilling about the slave’s utterance, which binds him to enslavement: “I love my master.” The Hebrew slave is not someone who already inhabits what the historical sociologist Orlando Patterson describes as the state of social death that defines slavery, but someone at risk of that condition, who must assess whether his best option is to relinquish his social belonging forever.
Perhaps Mishpatim, in opening with this legal scenario, is trying to teach us something about the ambiguity of law. The Hebrew slave could be a transitional figure, as many readers have hoped—but only if a strong social safety net were to protect him from true desperation. Mishpatim also presents the real possibility of a grim alternative: the formation of a Hebrew slave class, an impoverished group of quasi-criminal debt slaves marked as inferior. The law only serves the social good if people work to create a good society; otherwise, it entrenches injustice. If we read Mishpatim placidly as a progressive text, we may overlook the signs of persistent material need and coercive hierarchies that lurk beneath it. If we accept that it is a difficult text that does not easily resolve social challenges, it might help us illuminate the invisible cruelties that animate our world today.
Avi Garelick is a researcher and organizer based in Washington Heights, New York.
