Insight 74-16: Equality and Inequality

For Va'era
Not yet available on the Nishma website.

Study Question

1) We brought up this issue already in the Insight but, as mentioned there, it was not something we could go into at the time. This is the question of whether the Torah challenge against slavery is specifically against Jews being enslaved or is there a general disgust within the Torah perspective toward slavery of all? This, obviously, touches upon the very subject of the relationship between the Jewish People and humanity in general. There is much room for discussion on this topic. The fact that there is a difference between the Torah rules regarding a Jewish slave and those regarding a non-Jewish slave does not, though, inherently point to a necessary distinction in the view of the entire system. This distinction may be for a variety of reasons. It should still be strongly noted that the Torah rules regarding a non-Jewish were still much, much more progressive than the rules in general regarding slavery in that world.