Pensée juive sur L’Exode 21:2

Having established that this is the day of judgment and sounding of the shofar, three things should be explained. A) The nature of the judgment. B) The order of the blowing of the shofar during the recitals of the three central benedictions of the mussaph amidah, the central prayer, and the other shofar blowings on that day. C) The reason for this judgment. As explained in Aristotele's ethics, since man's relationship to his Creator is like that of son to father, or slave to master, in that he really has no claim on his master since he is his master's property, so man has no claim upon G'd, seeing he is merely His creature. Any benefit conferred upon man therefore is an act of kindness and not an act of justice. The rights the Torah has conferred upon a father vis a vis his daughter are indicative of the father/daughter legal position. Surely G'ds rights vis a vis us are no less! The rights of an owner vis a vis a slave are similarly comprehensive. It is only logical that a creator has complete freedom of action relative to the things he creates, and therefore any creature of his cannot possibly go to litigation with him, since the creature has no legal standing. The judgmental relationship that does exist is expressed in the liturgical poem hayom harat olam, "this is the birthday of the universe..." Either we qualify for mercy, or, if we are like slaves, we plead for chaninah, grace." At any rate, G'd has singled us out by revealing only to us that he sits in judgment. (Psalms 147,20) "He has told His words to Jacob, His laws to Israel; He has not done so for any other nation." All the quotations in the Bible referring to this judgment, confirm that the Almighty deals with us as if we were equals and had claims upon Him. In Psalms 89,15, we read "Righteousness and justice are the abode of Your throne, kindness and mercy precede Your Presence." All this is an acknowledgment that G'd has freely subjected Himself to such rules. There had been no legal reason for Him to do so. Our approach therefore, is to stress G'ds majesty rather than His overlordship, ownership etc. by means of the shofar, to remind Him of those of our meritorious deeds which He should not ignore. The psalmist saying "hail the people who understand the meaning of teruah, the sound of the shofar; they can expect to walk in the light of Your favour" is thus vindicated. (Psalms 89,16) The meaning of zichron teruah in Leviticus 23,24, is bringing ourselves to the fore by means of the teruah. Rabbi Nathan finds all these concepts in one single verse, (Numbers 10,10), since he views the shofar procedure from the point of view of the one who blows it. That person intends from the outset to remind G'd of the person who blows the shofar. In his view, the shofar takes precedence over the zichronot, since it is the shofar which "gets the ball rolling," so to speak. Of course, unless there is an awareness and appreciation of "majesty" malchut, and remembrances zichronot, the shofar blowing itself would be meaningless.

The Torah frowns on excessive pursuit of material goods. Therefore we read "if you will listen to My commandments...you will gather in your harvest." This means you engage in necessary activities to assure yourself of your livelihood. Selling oneself to another person in order to gain financial security, and to escape one's responsibilities, is frowned on. The fact that even the most private possessions such as wife and children acquired during servitude, continue to belong to the master, demonstrates that the Torah's message to us is to rely on G'd and not on man. After all, it is He who has commanded the children of Israel "for to Me are the children of Israel servants." He did not take us out of Egypt in order for us to become slaves again. The pursuit of worldly goods is a waste of time, since we leave the world as naked as we came into it. (Job 1, 21, "I came naked out of my mother's womb, and naked will I return there.") The whole paragraph dealing with the Jewish servant can be understood allegorically as reflecting man's experience in this world. He enters alone, leaves alone, leaves his acquisitions behind, and when he expresses the desire to attach himself to a human master, he is brought to elohim, to be forcefully reminded of his error. In the seventh decade of his life, his vitality ebbs, and as he approaches his death, i.e. the time he returns to the grave, he does so chinam, chofshi, without any encumbrance. This is either due to physical decline or because of lack of energy to go on living. The wheel has turned, as a wheel is always apt to do. What had once been thought to be a continuous upward curve, has peaked and become a downward movement. (compare Exodus 21, 2-6) Man will wind up as a servant "forever" to his "Master" in the world of infinity. The purpose of the Torah has always been to liberate mortal man from the inevitable and depressingly terminal state of merely physical existence here on earth. Accepting the yoke of Torah is an incomparably easier burden than living with the thought of the futility of all earthly existence. One of the ways to achieve freedom from the obsessive character of the greed to amass more and more material, i.e. useless wealth, is the Torah's emphasis that one should be satisfied with the necessities of life. All the Torah's promises of reward for performing G'ds commandments are of this nature. "I will grant you rain at the appropriate time;" "you will gather in your grain harvest." "You will eat, be sated and bless the Lord." Performance of G'ds commandments will enable us to feel "satiated" when we have eaten. The greatest lesson in this respect was the experience of man, the heavenly bread the Israelites ate in the desert. This taught reliance on G'd, the futility of amassing for the future as long as one is under the loving care of G'ds Personal Providence.

And so beloved and great was compassion to the Giver of the Torah, blessed be He that immediately after the giving of the Torah, when He came to teach the people the judgments whereby they were to conduct themselves, with what did He open? (Shemoth 21:2) "When you acquire a Hebrew slave, etc." All know of the status of slaves in those times. They were the property of their owners, they and their children, like oxen or asses, and the master was permitted to beat or kill his slaves without fear (of reprisal). Yet the Torah in the beginning of (the pronouncement of) its judgments, called out liberty for the Hebrew slave, that he not labor for more than six years. And it was forbidden to kill even a Canaanite slave or to strike him cruelly. And it commanded that if his master beat him and he died under his hand, vengeance was to be taken. And if he maimed his eye or knocked his tooth out, he was to be set free. And it commanded, too, that his slave rest on Sabbaths and Festivals. The Torah was compassionate even to female captives of war, commanding that they be allowed a month of days to bewail at will their fathers and mothers; and it was forbidden to sell them after cohabiting with them.