Slave Mentality

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1. Crossing the Yarden - The Theme of Passage

   Rabbi Michael Hattin

   This lesson compares the crossing of the Yarden with its most obvious parallel, the crossing of Yam Suf. In both incidents the crossing is not merely physical but existential - crossing into freedom leaving the slave masters of Egypt behind for good and forty years later crossing out of the nomadic lives of the wilderness into the settled life of Eretz Yisrael. Similarly, Avraham and Yaakov cross waters marking significant changes in their lives. While many similarities exist between the crossing of Yam Suf and the Yarden, the many differences between the two episodes highlight the stage of development the nation is in during each episode.  

2. Parashat Vaera - Moshe the Liberator

   Rabbi Ezra Bick | 30 minutes

   Parashat Vaera is notorious for the confusion at the beginning - there is blatant repetition of the command to tell Pharaoh the message, and Moshe's complaint. We compare our parasha to the previous Parasha- Parashat Shemot, to look at Moshe's two missions. Moshe appears to believe he has two missions: one to Pharaoh and one to the Jews. What are these different missions? Is God only concerned with the mission to Pharaoh?

   Moshe wishes to uplift the spirit of Bnei Yisrael, but is mistaken in his approach: Moshe's mission to Bnei Yisrael will be completed through his mission to Pharaoh. Rather than by oratory, Bnei Yisrael will be liberated by God as the collapse of Egypt and the breaking of their yoke of slavery occurs before their eyes, in a way that is drawn-out enough to transform the way they see themselves.

3. God’s Nudge

   Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

   In Parshat Yitro there were the Aseret Hadibrot, the “ten utterances” or general principles. Now in Parshat Mishpatim come the details. They begin by outlining the laws of Hebrew servant.

   Why begin here? There are 613 commandments in the Torah. Why does Mishpatim, the first law code, begin where it does?

   The Israelites have just endured slavery in Egypt. It seems that this was the necessary first experience of the Israelites as a nation. From the very start of the human story, the God of freedom sought the free worship of free human beings. It took the collective experience of the Israelites, their deep, intimate, personal, backbreaking, bitter experience of slavery – a memory they were commanded never to forget – to turn them into a people who would no longer turn their brothers and sisters into slaves, a people capable of constructing a free society, the hardest of all achievements in the human realm. 

    

   This lecture is part of the Covenant & Conversation series.

   To read more from Rabbi Sacks or to subscribe to his mailing list, please visit http://www.rabbisacks.org/. You can also follow him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. 

4. A Quick Look at Vaeira - Moshe's Announcement and Bnei Yisrael's Responses

   Rabbi Ezra Bick | 7 minutes

   The parsha begins with Bnei Yisrael not listening to Moshe. What happened? Bnei Yisrael were first excited, and then, after Moshe speaks to Pharaoh again, they do not listen out of “shortness of spirit.” What does this mean? What accounts for this change?

5. Re'eh: The Strange Laws Of Jewish Slavery

   Rabbi David Fohrman |

   In this week's parsha, we are given the commandments relating to a Jew having a Jewish slave. The laws here seem strange: we give gifts to the slave? If he wants to stay, we must pierce his ear? Rabbi Fohrman goes through these oddities to show us that the Torah is reminding us of our own national slavery in Egypt.

    

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