MiIgra Rama l'Bira Amikta! From a high roof to a deep pit! That's how some describe the sudden transition from the incomparable, dizzying spiritual heights of Matan Torah in last week's parasha to the mundane, all-too-earthly laws regulation such unspiritual acts as assault, murder, injury, property damage, enslavement and the like. How could Moshe one moment be reassuring the people regarding the lasting impact of their near-death spiritual high at Mt. Sinai, and the next minute be instructing them of how properly to sell their daughters into slavery? How do WE move from the sublime and material to the ever-so-concrete and material in a single week?
The Midrash is also disturbed, it seems, by the shift to the mundane realm. Our Sages were constantly fending off the attacks of early Christianity and other sects who pointed to the preoccupation with concrete details as an indication that Jews had lost their spiritual way. Shemot Rabba chapter 30 devotes lengthy discourses to championing the laws of Parashat Mishpatim, showing how dear they are to Hashem, how precious they should be to us. In one passage, the MIdrash attempts to refute the notion that Mishpatim is a turning away from Sinai by showing the parallels between Aseret Hadirot and the opening verses of Mishpatim. It claims that Mishpatim opens with the laws of Eved Ivri because the first verse of Aseret Hadibrot is: "I am Hashem your G-d Who took you out from the Land of Egypt, from the house of slaves".
But wait a second. If Hashem took us out of slavery and bondage, then why do we need laws regulating slavery? Shouldn't slavery be forbidden? And even if we concede that it is permissible to hold slaves from the other nations when sold to us BY those other nations, or taken as captives in war, what place is there for laws regarding a Hebrew slave, an Eved Ivri? How can one Jew hold another in bondage?
There is so, so much depth and powerful spiritual allusions to be had both from the laws of Eved Ivri and Eved Kena'ani - we can't possible do the subject justice in a few short paragraphs. Nevertheless, let's explore a few aspects.
I believe there is an underlying axiom at work here. With apologies to Rousseau, it goes like this: Man is born with the potential to become free, but everywhere tends to entangle himself and others in chains. The emergence from slavery in Egypt, as made clear by many commentators in a number of different ways, is only truly complete when the people hear Hashem's voice at Sinai. When at the end of Parashat Yitro, they flee in fear, they return to a realm in which bondage of one sort or another is an inherent possibility in every transaction and interaction.
The Eved Ivri is sold into slavery because of his inability to pay restitution for theft he committed. Alternatively, he can sell himself into slavery out of destitution. But whether it is imposed upon him or "freely chosen", it is a kind of taking shelter to reconstitute via atonement and a new start a life of freedom. After six years, he is recreated and emerges to "rest" in the shade of his own will in the seventh.
But what if he says, "I LOVE my master...I will NOT go free!". In that case, his non-functioning ear, which heard at Sinai "For to ME are the people of Israel slaves" - and NOT slaves to (those who themselves are actually My) slaves - and did not heed or comprehend - that ear must be bored through. Then the Eved Ivri may stay until the end of the current jubilee cycle, a maximum of 50 years, but at that time, he is sent forth willy nilly!
Freedom is intoxicating, dangerous and frightening. True freedom, that of the spiritual adept, freedom TO be close to Hashem - means freedom FROM out comfortable self-images which work so well for us in our day-to-day lives, but keep us from gazing up and in. We all talk about growth, about teshuva, about going beyond ourselves, about yearning, to the point that that speech itself becomes the reassurring patter that, by pointing to the beyond without demanding we begin the journey there, serves as the slavemaster's strongest manacles.
Aren't we all huddling under protective mantle of Eved Ivri? Aren't we all afraid to poke our heads out and see Sinai once again? And seeing ourselves in this way, is it even conceivable that we could see others and treat them any differently? Isn't it the case that if we ourselves function on a level of Eved Ivri, we run a good chance of relating to others as a Eved Kena'ani. Don't we hold the solid image of the other as our own "intellectual property"? How dare they break free and grow and change? Isn't this really the dynamic behind that innocent statement, "No! You CAN"t be Plony! You were just a little kid last I saw you, it hasn't been that long, has it?"
It's been snowy the last few days. Water, that lovely flow of life, has congealed on our roads and in our yards, impeding progress. That's keep my nose to the Gemara grindstone pretty well this last days, and "coincidentally" we've been learning a passage discussing, in passing, the laws regulating when a worker who has contracted to work for a householder can opt out of the contract. Interestingly, the law is that, though he may have contracted for a full day, he can opt out mid-day and receive payment for the work he has done (assuming that only causes the householder inconvenience and not actually monetary loss). The householder may not hold his salary hostage to the worker completing the day's work. This is learned out from that verse referenced before: "For to Me are the people of Israel slaves" - and not slaves to slaves. A marginal note on the pages sent me to a note in the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen MIshpat, chapter 333 (do the gematria and note the first words of this paragraph - chilling!). There we learn that since if an Eved Ivri works for there yeara and is sick for three years, he need not fill out the time he's missed, since half the six year period of servitude has been completed, therefore it is forbidden for a Jew to hire himself out in a contractually obligating way for more than three years, since he is effectively making himself into a slave!!
In other words, we have the spiritual obligation to avoid the temptation to take refuge in the security of a stultifying stability in our life circumstances and the visions for our future. We must break free of our own grasp again and again, for only thus do we hear and internalize the resounding voice of "I am Hashem..Who took you out". And the place, the only place where such an escape could be meaningful, even revelatory, is here, down here, down in the deep pit of the mundane.
The snow is melting. I can hear it trickle as it flows from the roof above my high-ceilinged room down into the deep cuts on the hillside below our cantilevered home. What seemed so solid just two days and five degrees ago is percolating once again into the depths, to emerge in spring, cloud and blossom. I'm neither Rocky nor Bullwinkle, but I'm going tp try to follow, because, paradoxically, that's the way up the now-unbounded mountain of Sinai, where, on that shrouded peak beyond concept, our meeting with the Eternal One awaits.
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