This is an abridged version of the essayThe Slow End of Slavery, written by Rabbi Sacks in 2012.
Mishpatim contains a great transition from narrative to law. Until now, Shemot has been about telling the story of the enslavement of the Israelites and their journey to freedom. Now comes detailed legislation. This is not accidental but essential.
In Judaism, law grows out of the historical experience of the people. Egypt was the Jewish people’s school of the soul; memory was its ongoing seminar in the art and craft of freedom. It taught them what it felt like to be on the wrong side of power. “You know what it feels like to be a stranger,” says a resonant phrase in Mishpatim. Jews were the people commanded never to forget the bitter taste of slavery so that they would never take freedom for granted. Those who do so, eventually lose it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the opening of Mishpatim. We have been reading about the Israelites’ historic experience of slavery. So the social legislation of Mishpatim begins with slavery. What is fascinating is not only what it says but what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say: abolish slavery. Surely, it should have been done. Is that not the whole point of the story thus far? Yosef’s brothers sell him into slavery. He, as the Egyptian viceroy, threatens them with slavery. Generations later, the entire Israelite people become Egypt’s slaves. Slavery, like vengeance, is a vicious circle that has no natural end. Why not, then, give it a supernatural end? Why did God not say: There shall be no more slavery? The Torah has the answer. Change is possible in human nature but it takes time: time on a vast scale, centuries, even millennia.
There is no doubt that the Torah is against the exercise of power by one person over another, without their consent. It sees this as a fundamental assault against human dignity. So slavery is to be abolished. But God does not force us to change faster than we are able to do so of our own freewill. So Mishpatim does not abolish slavery entirely, but it sets in motion a series of laws that will lead people, to abolish it of their own accord, at their own pace, through various laws.
The Torah does not force people to be free, but it tries to steer them into the right decision. If a slave refuses to go free, his master “shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear.” So a slave may stay a slave but not without being reminded that this is not what God wants for His people. The result of these laws was to create a dynamic that would in the end lead to an abolition of slavery, at a time of free human choosing.
And so it happened. Those who led the campaign in Britain to abolish the slave trade were driven by religious conviction, inspired by the biblical narrative of the Exodus, and by the challenge of Yeshayahu. Slavery was abolished in the United States after the Civil War, and there were those who cited the Bible in defence of slavery.
Eventually people see that by insisting on their right to freedom and dignity while denying it to others, they are living a contradiction. That is when change takes place, and it takes time.
If history tells us anything it is that God has patience, though it is often sorely tried. He wanted slavery abolished but He wanted it to be done by free human beings coming to see of their own accord the evil it is and the evil it does. The God of history, who taught us to study history, had faith that eventually we would learn the lesson of history: that freedom is indivisible. We must grant freedom to others if we truly seek it for ourselves.
Around the Shabbat Table
Questions to Ponder
How do you think our family stories and memories help us make better choices today?
Why do some people fear freedom and prefer constraints, even when given the choice to be free?
Why do you think God chose patience over immediate intervention when confronting human moral failings? Have there been other times in the Tanach where this has come up?
On the Parsha
Written by Sara Lamm
Inspired by the Teachings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
The Parsha in a Nutshell
After the Ten Commandments are given, Bnai Yisrael received detailed laws from God covering multiple aspects of societal structure. These laws cover slavery, money-lending, courts, damages, and treatment of strangers, In total, Mishpatim contains 53 mitzvot, combining both positive laws and prohibitions. God promises to guide Bnai Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael, and warns them against adopting local idolatrous practices. The people declare “na’aseh v’nishma” (we will do and we will hear). Moshe then ascends Har Sinai for forty days, leaving Aharon and Chur to lead, while he receives the Torah.
Philosophy of Rabbi Sacks
Delving Deeper
The Torah approaches the abolition of slavery through a profound understanding of human nature and social change. Rather than mandating an immediate end to slavery, it introduces laws that would organically lead to its elimination through human free will and moral development.
The laws limit slavery to six years, mandate Sabbath rest for slaves, and create a stigmatising ritual for those choosing to remain enslaved. This measured approach reflects Divine patience in allowing humanity to evolve morally and at its own pace. Through this, God shows us that lasting transformation cannot be forced.
This wisdom proved meaningful in later history, as religious ideals of dignity and freedom eventually fuelled abolition movements in Britain and America. Though the path was long, societies gradually came to recognise slavery’s fundamental contradiction with these values, fulfilling the Torah’s vision of humanity choosing to reject slavery through its own moral awakening.
When have you witnessed someone’s journey from resistance to understanding? What made that shift possible?
Parsha Activity
A Positive Chain Gang
Hold hands and form a line. One person stays firmly planted to the floor - while everyone else can move/pivot around them (without breaking the chain). Work together to complete tasks such as picking up a toy just out of reach, removing the dishes from the table, or grabbing a book from a shelf. Each task requires the group to find creative ways to work together. For younger kids, make the tasks easier. For older families, you could create a sequence of tasks or add a time limit to increase the challenge.
Think about a time when you had to help someone reach a goal. What did you learn about freedom and support from that experience?
A Story for the Ages
The Choice
Edith Eger (Edie, as she was known) was the youngest child in her family. She spent her spare time dancing, especially ballet and gymnastics. But in the bitter Hungarian winter of 1944, sixteen-year-old Edie discovered a truth that would shape her entire life. Like all Jewish people in her part of the world, her physical freedom was stripped away, and the entire family was sent to Auschwitz.
“We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” her mother told her, “but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” Through these words, Edie found a different kind of liberty - one that lived in her mind. In her darkest moments in the camp, she would close her eyes and dance in her imagination, finding freedom in the graceful movements no one could see.
Years later, with her doctorate in psychology, Dr. Eger transformed this profound understanding into hope for others. In her therapy room, she showed her patients what she had learned in those harsh days - that true freedom isn’t just about unlocked doors and open gates. It’s about the choices we make in our minds every single day.
Like a dancer finding balance, she taught that freedom is a constant practice - each step a choice, each movement a decision to keep going forward.
Today, Edith Eger is 97 years old. She is a respected clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and beloved grandmother. She has shared her message with millions, that “What happens to us in life is not the most important thing in the end. Rather, the most important thing is what we do with our lives.”
When have you experienced a moment where you realised that real change - in yourself or in others - had to come from understanding and choice?
What made that moment meaningful?
On the Haftara
Written by Rabbi Barry Kleinberg
Inspired by the Teachings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
A summary
The Haftara in a Nutshell
Jeremiah 34:8-22 and 33:25-26 (Ashkenazim and Sephardim) Jeremiah 34:8-35 (Yemenites)
Jeremiah 34:8–22 recounts a covenant made by King Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem to release their Hebrew slaves after six years of service, as required by the Torah in Mishpatim.
Initially, they obey, freeing the slaves, but later they break the covenant and re-enslave them. Through Jeremiah, God rebukes the people for their disobedience and declares His judgment. The breach of the covenant will lead to destruction by the Babylonians, who will burn Jerusalem and take the people captive.
In Jeremiah 33:25–26, God reaffirms His covenant with Israel despite their failures. Using the unchanging order of day and night as a metaphor, He promises not to reject the descendants of Yaakov and David.
God vows to restore their fortunes and show mercy, underscoring His faithfulness to His covenant and His plans for Israel’s ultimate redemption.
Why do you think most communities read the extra two verses from the previous chapter (33) at the end of the Haftara?
Points to Ponder
Can you think of other covenants made by God which involve natural phenomena?
Why do you think God uses aspects of nature as the basis of His promises?
Should the Jewish people have been more willing to set their slaves free that other peoples at that time? Why?
Tanach Connections
Parsha and Haftara Links
The clear link between this week’s Parsha and Haftara is the topic of slavery.
The Torah commands that a Hebrew slave be set free after six years of service. There are also laws in place to ensure the slaves are well-treated. But the obvious question is why Judaism permitted any type of slavery after the Exodus. The Torah was given to a people who had suffered as slaves and been set free by God, and commanded to only serve him and no-one else.
As Rabbi Sacks explains in the full essay (The Slow End of Slavery): “Jews were the people commanded never to forget the bitter taste of slavery so that they would never take freedom for granted. Those who do so, eventually lose it...
“Slavery, like vengeance, is a vicious circle that has no natural end. Why not, then, give it a supernatural end? Why did God not say: There shall be no more slavery?The Torah has already given us an implicit answer. Change is possible in human nature but it takes time: time on a vast scale, centuries, even millennia.”
Putting the Prophets into Context
The Book of Jeremiah
Rabbi Sacks wrote that: “Jeremiah, the most passionate and tormented of all the prophets, has gone down in history as the prophet of doom. Yet this is unfair. He was also supremely a prophet of hope. He is the man who said that the people of Israel will be as eternal as the sun, moon and stars (see Jeremiah 31). He is the man who, while the Babylonians were laying siege to Jerusalem, bought a field as a public gesture of faith that Jews would return from exile:
‘For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’ (Jeremiah 32).
“Jeremiah’s feelings of doom and hope were not in conflict: they were two sides of the same coin. The God who sentenced His people to exile would be the God who brought them back, for though His people might forsake Him, He would never forsake them. Jeremiah may have lost faith in people; he never lost faith in God.”
Rabbi Sacks saw Jeremiah as a man who saw the future, and dreaded the inevitable, but also had hope that the people would be redeemed by God one day, and always tried to use his words to convey his faith to the people.
Quote of the Week
“The Torah does not abolish slavery, but it mitigates and restricts it in such a way as to steer the nation towards its eventual abolition.”
Covenant & Conversation, Exodus, p. 331
Further Ponderings
If you wanted to ban something immoral in a society that might be unwilling to accept the change, how might you go about it?
Written as an accompaniment to Rabbi Sacks’ weekly Covenant & Conversation essay, the
Family Edition
is aimed at connecting teenagers with his ideas and thoughts on the parsha.
With thanks to the Schimmel Family for their generous sponsorship of Covenant &
Conversation, dedicated in loving memory of Harry (Chaim) Schimmel.
“I have loved the Torah of R’ Chaim Schimmel ever since I first encountered it. It
strives to be not just about truth on the surface but also its connection to a
deeper truth beneath. Together with Anna, his remarkable wife of 60 years, they
built a life dedicated to love of family, community, and Torah. An extraordinary
couple who have moved me beyond measure by the example of their lives.” — Rabbi
Sacks
The Parsha in a Nutshell Following the revelation (where God reveals Himself and communicates religious truths) at Mount Sinai, Mishpatim expands on the details of…
The Slow End of Slavery
Family Edition
Mishpatim
Inspired by the teachings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
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Mishpatim
The Slow End of Slavery
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The Summary
This is an abridged version of the essay The Slow End of Slavery, written by Rabbi Sacks in 2012.
Mishpatim contains a great transition from narrative to law. Until now, Shemot has been about telling the story of the enslavement of the Israelites and their journey to freedom. Now comes detailed legislation. This is not accidental but essential.
In Judaism, law grows out of the historical experience of the people. Egypt was the Jewish people’s school of the soul; memory was its ongoing seminar in the art and craft of freedom. It taught them what it felt like to be on the wrong side of power. “You know what it feels like to be a stranger,” says a resonant phrase in Mishpatim. Jews were the people commanded never to forget the bitter taste of slavery so that they would never take freedom for granted. Those who do so, eventually lose it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the opening of Mishpatim. We have been reading about the Israelites’ historic experience of slavery. So the social legislation of Mishpatim begins with slavery. What is fascinating is not only what it says but what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say: abolish slavery. Surely, it should have been done. Is that not the whole point of the story thus far? Yosef’s brothers sell him into slavery. He, as the Egyptian viceroy, threatens them with slavery. Generations later, the entire Israelite people become Egypt’s slaves. Slavery, like vengeance, is a vicious circle that has no natural end. Why not, then, give it a supernatural end? Why did God not say: There shall be no more slavery? The Torah has the answer. Change is possible in human nature but it takes time: time on a vast scale, centuries, even millennia.
There is no doubt that the Torah is against the exercise of power by one person over another, without their consent. It sees this as a fundamental assault against human dignity. So slavery is to be abolished. But God does not force us to change faster than we are able to do so of our own freewill. So Mishpatim does not abolish slavery entirely, but it sets in motion a series of laws that will lead people, to abolish it of their own accord, at their own pace, through various laws.
The Torah does not force people to be free, but it tries to steer them into the right decision. If a slave refuses to go free, his master “shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear.” So a slave may stay a slave but not without being reminded that this is not what God wants for His people. The result of these laws was to create a dynamic that would in the end lead to an abolition of slavery, at a time of free human choosing.
And so it happened. Those who led the campaign in Britain to abolish the slave trade were driven by religious conviction, inspired by the biblical narrative of the Exodus, and by the challenge of Yeshayahu. Slavery was abolished in the United States after the Civil War, and there were those who cited the Bible in defence of slavery.
Eventually people see that by insisting on their right to freedom and dignity while denying it to others, they are living a contradiction. That is when change takes place, and it takes time.
If history tells us anything it is that God has patience, though it is often sorely tried. He wanted slavery abolished but He wanted it to be done by free human beings coming to see of their own accord the evil it is and the evil it does. The God of history, who taught us to study history, had faith that eventually we would learn the lesson of history: that freedom is indivisible. We must grant freedom to others if we truly seek it for ourselves.
Around the Shabbat Table
Questions to Ponder
On the Parsha
Written by Sara Lamm
Inspired by the Teachings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
The Parsha in a Nutshell
After the Ten Commandments are given, Bnai Yisrael received detailed laws from God covering multiple aspects of societal structure. These laws cover slavery, money-lending, courts, damages, and treatment of strangers, In total, Mishpatim contains 53 mitzvot, combining both positive laws and prohibitions. God promises to guide Bnai Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael, and warns them against adopting local idolatrous practices. The people declare “na’aseh v’nishma” (we will do and we will hear). Moshe then ascends Har Sinai for forty days, leaving Aharon and Chur to lead, while he receives the Torah.
Philosophy of Rabbi Sacks
Delving Deeper
The Torah approaches the abolition of slavery through a profound understanding of human nature and social change. Rather than mandating an immediate end to slavery, it introduces laws that would organically lead to its elimination through human free will and moral development.
The laws limit slavery to six years, mandate Sabbath rest for slaves, and create a stigmatising ritual for those choosing to remain enslaved. This measured approach reflects Divine patience in allowing humanity to evolve morally and at its own pace. Through this, God shows us that lasting transformation cannot be forced.
This wisdom proved meaningful in later history, as religious ideals of dignity and freedom eventually fuelled abolition movements in Britain and America. Though the path was long, societies gradually came to recognise slavery’s fundamental contradiction with these values, fulfilling the Torah’s vision of humanity choosing to reject slavery through its own moral awakening.
Parsha Activity
A Positive Chain Gang
Hold hands and form a line. One person stays firmly planted to the floor - while everyone else can move/pivot around them (without breaking the chain). Work together to complete tasks such as picking up a toy just out of reach, removing the dishes from the table, or grabbing a book from a shelf. Each task requires the group to find creative ways to work together. For younger kids, make the tasks easier. For older families, you could create a sequence of tasks or add a time limit to increase the challenge.
Think about a time when you had to help someone reach a goal. What did you learn about freedom and support from that experience?
A Story for the Ages
The Choice
Edith Eger (Edie, as she was known) was the youngest child in her family. She spent her spare time dancing, especially ballet and gymnastics. But in the bitter Hungarian winter of 1944, sixteen-year-old Edie discovered a truth that would shape her entire life. Like all Jewish people in her part of the world, her physical freedom was stripped away, and the entire family was sent to Auschwitz.
“We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” her mother told her, “but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” Through these words, Edie found a different kind of liberty - one that lived in her mind. In her darkest moments in the camp, she would close her eyes and dance in her imagination, finding freedom in the graceful movements no one could see.
Years later, with her doctorate in psychology, Dr. Eger transformed this profound understanding into hope for others. In her therapy room, she showed her patients what she had learned in those harsh days - that true freedom isn’t just about unlocked doors and open gates. It’s about the choices we make in our minds every single day.
Like a dancer finding balance, she taught that freedom is a constant practice - each step a choice, each movement a decision to keep going forward.
Today, Edith Eger is 97 years old. She is a respected clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and beloved grandmother. She has shared her message with millions, that “What happens to us in life is not the most important thing in the end. Rather, the most important thing is what we do with our lives.”
On the Haftara
Written by Rabbi Barry Kleinberg
Inspired by the Teachings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
A summary
The Haftara in a Nutshell
Jeremiah 34:8-22 and 33:25-26 (Ashkenazim and Sephardim)
Jeremiah 34:8-35 (Yemenites)
Jeremiah 34:8–22 recounts a covenant made by King Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem to release their Hebrew slaves after six years of service, as required by the Torah in Mishpatim.
Initially, they obey, freeing the slaves, but later they break the covenant and re-enslave them. Through Jeremiah, God rebukes the people for their disobedience and declares His judgment. The breach of the covenant will lead to destruction by the Babylonians, who will burn Jerusalem and take the people captive.
In Jeremiah 33:25–26, God reaffirms His covenant with Israel despite their failures. Using the unchanging order of day and night as a metaphor, He promises not to reject the descendants of Yaakov and David.
God vows to restore their fortunes and show mercy, underscoring His faithfulness to His covenant and His plans for Israel’s ultimate redemption.
Points to Ponder
Tanach Connections
Parsha and Haftara Links
The clear link between this week’s Parsha and Haftara is the topic of slavery.
The Torah commands that a Hebrew slave be set free after six years of service. There are also laws in place to ensure the slaves are well-treated. But the obvious question is why Judaism permitted any type of slavery after the Exodus. The Torah was given to a people who had suffered as slaves and been set free by God, and commanded to only serve him and no-one else.
As Rabbi Sacks explains in the full essay (The Slow End of Slavery): “Jews were the people commanded never to forget the bitter taste of slavery so that they would never take freedom for granted. Those who do so, eventually lose it...
“Slavery, like vengeance, is a vicious circle that has no natural end. Why not, then, give it a supernatural end? Why did God not say: There shall be no more slavery? The Torah has already given us an implicit answer. Change is possible in human nature but it takes time: time on a vast scale, centuries, even millennia.”
Putting the Prophets into Context
The Book of Jeremiah
Rabbi Sacks wrote that: “Jeremiah, the most passionate and tormented of all the prophets, has gone down in history as the prophet of doom. Yet this is unfair. He was also supremely a prophet of hope. He is the man who said that the people of Israel will be as eternal as the sun, moon and stars (see Jeremiah 31). He is the man who, while the Babylonians were laying siege to Jerusalem, bought a field as a public gesture of faith that Jews would return from exile:
“Jeremiah’s feelings of doom and hope were not in conflict: they were two sides of the same coin. The God who sentenced His people to exile would be the God who brought them back, for though His people might forsake Him, He would never forsake them. Jeremiah may have lost faith in people; he never lost faith in God.”
Rabbi Sacks saw Jeremiah as a man who saw the future, and dreaded the inevitable, but also had hope that the people would be redeemed by God one day, and always tried to use his words to convey his faith to the people.
Quote of the Week
“The Torah does not abolish slavery, but it mitigates and restricts it in such a way as to steer the nation towards its eventual abolition.”
Covenant & Conversation, Exodus, p. 331
Further Ponderings
If you wanted to ban something immoral in a society that might be unwilling to accept the change, how might you go about it?
Written as an accompaniment to Rabbi Sacks’ weekly Covenant & Conversation essay, the Family Edition is aimed at connecting teenagers with his ideas and thoughts on the parsha.
With thanks to the Schimmel Family for their generous sponsorship of Covenant & Conversation, dedicated in loving memory of Harry (Chaim) Schimmel.
The Custom That Refused To Die
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More on Mishpatim
God’s Nudge
Doing and Hearing
We Will Do and We Will Hear
Loving the Stranger