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Parshat Re'eh
2004
Ethical Ideals and Economic Realities
This week's Torah portion, Re'eh, continues Moses' second discourse to the Israelites, who will soon enter into the land. It includes many laws intended to create a just and ethical society, including the commandment to give to the needy. In this context, the Torah addresses the situation of a needy person who was forced to sell himself into slavery.
Deuteronomy 15:12-15
If a fellow Hebrew, man or woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall set him free. When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed: Furnish him out of the flock, threshing floor, and vat, with which the Lord your God has blessed you. Bear in mind that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I enjoin this commandment upon you today.
Deuteronomy 15:18
When you do set him free, do not feel aggrieved; for in the six years he has given you double the service of a hired man. Moreover, the Lord your God will bless you in all you do.
Your Torah Navigator
1. What is the relationship between the commandment to release the Hebrew slave in the seventh year and the Torah's overall attitude toward slavery?
2. When this law appears in Exodus 21:2, it reads "When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free without payment." Why does our text from Deuteronomy add the requirement that the freed slave be sent off with gifts?
3. Proper behavior can be prescribed by society, but feelings are impossible to legislate. Why then does the Torah command, "When you do set him free, do not feel aggrieved?"
A Word
As Moses prepares the people for the next stage of their journey, he seems to try to find a balance between presenting a utopian ideal for which the Israelites should strive, while still urging them to maintain high ethical standards within a realistically imperfect society. This is quite clear in the discussion of the slaves. The Israelites were expected to learn from their personal history as slaves in Egypt the important values of human equality, the preservation of dignity, and personal autonomy, but they also needed to find a way as a society to allow those in need to support themselves without abandoning those values entirely.
The requirements that slavery be only temporary, and that newly freed slaves would be sent off with provisions that would enable them to make a fresh start and avoid permanent economic dependence on others were ways of imposing ethical standards on an imperfect system. Clearly the grand vision was that ultimately the commandments regarding slaves would become irrelevant, for God's will was a nation of Israel in which all could prosper, "there shall be no needy among you…" (Deuteronomy 15:4). Until that day, the Israelites were to do the best they could not to oppress or exploit those who ended up disadvantaged in society and so they needed to periodically give those individuals a chance to make a fresh start.
By sending them off with gifts and hopefully doing so with an attitude of support and encouragement, the Israelites could live by their ethical values and work toward a better tomorrow for the whole community. May each of us try to imagine a world free of economic injustice for the next generations and may we have the compassion to work to reduce the very real challenges facing the needy members of the communities in which we live today.
Prepared by Rabbi Amber Powers, Dean of Admissions and Recruitment, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
Learn More
Additional commentaries and text studies on Re'eh at MyJewishLearning.com.
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