We are starting Devarim, or Deuteronomy, the fifth book of Torah. It represents Moses’ renewal of the Sinai covenant with the next generation, who would soon enter the Promised Land1. Moses recounts the events of the past 40 years to the Israelites camped on the banks of the Jordan. In fact, "Deuteronomy" is derived from the Greek term for "repetition of the law."
Today’s portion recounts Moses’ appointment of leaders, the sending of the spies, and the crisis of faith that led to the forty-year stay in the wilderness. Moses reminds the people of their victories over Moab and Ammon and the settlement of their land by the tribes of Reuben and Gad and part of Menashe, and the appointment of Joshua as Moses’ successor.
However, in honour of Mona’s birthday and the anniversary of the UK Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, I’m going to discuss slavery in Torah. The Hebrew term eved, translated as either slave or servant, appears roughly 800 times across the Tanakh. (But unhelpfully, not once in today’s portion.)
I want to tell you that Torah advocated a more progressive, enlightened view of slavery. I want to tell you that slavery at the time was different from the racist and vicious slavery of the Atlantic slave trade. I want to quote Rabbi Shai Held2 who wrote Devarim 15, “radicalizes the requirements laid out in Exodus. Not only is the tenure of indentured servitude given a firm limit of six years3 but the Israelite is enjoined to help the newly freed slave achieve a fresh economic start.” Even while telling the Israelites how to treat slaves, God says to keep this commandment because “you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you.”
But therein lies the problem: The Torah knew slavery was wrong! Tzvi Freeman writes, “The central event of the Torah narrative is the liberation of an entire nation of slaves from a cruel oppressor. Torah is about liberty, human dignity and respect.”4 Exodus 20 contains the ten commandments and the first one begins, “I am the Lord thy god, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Yet the very next chapter contains the rules for Hebrew slaves! Slaves are directly referenced as chattel, as property belonging to their masters, and the life of a slave is even given a price: 30 shekels of silver (Exodus 21:32). Slaves could be beaten (Exod 21:20-21), taken as concubines (Gen 16:3-4; Exod 21:8-11) and raped without serious consequence (Lev 19:20-22).
In Genesis 16, Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant and the mother of Ishmael, was an Egyptian slave. Sarai tells Abram, “Consort with my maid; perhaps I shall have a child through her.” When Hagar does become pregnant, Sarai complains and Abram responds, “Your maid is in your hands. Deal with her as you think right.” Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away, but an angel convinced her to return. After Sarah gives birth to Isaac she tells Abraham, “Cast out that slave-woman and her son, for the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
According to Jonathan Schorsch5, Hebrew slavery was prohibited during the Rabbinic era for as long as the Temple in Jerusalem is defunct. Maimonides proposed that a non-Jewish slave should be offered conversion and, if accepted, would then be released because Hebrew slaves were not permissible. If the slave did not accept conversion, the Jewish slave owner should sell the slave to non-Jews.6 It is not clear if this convention was ever adopted, but in order to fulfill three of Maimonides’ 613 mitzvot, you will first need to own a slave!
By 1783, an anti-slavery movement had begun in Britain. Josiah Wedgewood – of pottery fame – designed a cameo that depicts a kneeling black man in chains with his hands raised to the heavens inscribed with the phrase "Am I not a man and a brother?" which became quite a popular symbol of abolishionists. In 1807, the UK made the slave trade illegal; slaves could still be owned but no longer sold or transported. Initially, a fine of £100 was applied for every slave found aboard a British ship; however, this led to slaves being thrown overboard whenever a Royal Navy ship approached. In 1827, participation in the slave trade was punishable by death.
In 1804, a slave revolt in Haiti ended with the country’s independence from France. In 1823, the Demerara rebellion in British Guiana saw up to 12,000 slaves revolt. In 1831, the Christmas Rebellion in Jamaica saw 60,000 slaves rise up. By 1832, the profitability of the sugar economy in the British Caribbean was declining and a reform of the House of Commons reduced the influence of wealthy slaveholders, setting the stage for the UK Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.
However, it did not take effect for an entire year, and even then only children under the age of six were emancipated. “Slaves” were rebranded “unpaid apprentices” and bonded to their former owner for four to six years. Approximately 800,000 enslaved Africans were affected, but many parts of the Empire were excluded. It would be another 100 years before the last two British territories, Bahrain and Nigeria, abolished slavery.
As Mona made me aware, the British government did make reparations for slavery: The government borrowed 20 million pounds – three-quarters of which was from Nathan Rothschild and Moses Montefiore7 – which was used to pay the owners of registered slaves. In British Guiana, the average compensation was £50 per slave, equivalent to £7,000 today. The slaves themselves did not receive any form of compensation. (Some say the loan from Rothschild and Montefiore enabled this emancipation8, but it is also possible they were just profiting from it.)
As you know, governments finance debt by issuing bonds and then paying interest on that bond every year. Government debt tends to get bundled together, so it’s hard to track a specific loan, but in 2015, the total redemption value of the debt bundle that contained the Slavery Abolition Act loan reached £218 million pounds. For 180 years, British citizens were still paying reparations to slave owners.
And of course, the US continued its slave trade until the Civil War, which was anything but civil. In August 1862, Abraham Lincoln stated: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it.” In 1863, Lincoln issued his “emancipation proclamation” which declared "that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." As my ninth-grade history teacher pointed out, by singling out the rebellious states, Lincoln freed all the slaves he couldn’t free (i.e. he had no control over them) and didn’t free any of the slaves he could free (as there were still slave States aligned with the North).
It wasn’t until 1865 that the 13th amendment forbid slavery, but the institutional racism it created still defines America. In 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that, on average, White individuals have $80,040 in savings, compared to $13,370 for Black individuals. In 2023, home ownership among whites was 72.4%, blacks were 44.7%. In 2022, the infant mortality rate for Black Americans was 2.4 times the rate for whites. 35% of the US population hold a university degree but only 26% of Blacks do. Today, the US government continues to honour individuals who waged an insurrection for the right to keep slaves.
We haven’t abolished slavery so much as abolished the word “slavery.” Today, it goes by terms like human trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage and domestic servitude. In the States, the 13th Amendment banned slavery and involuntary servitude "except as punishment for a crime." In California in 2018, 2,500 incarcerated workers fought dangerous wildfires for $1 per hour. Prison labour is rife in the UK, Australia and China. In India, people are used as security against a loan, and even when they die the debts are passed down to relatives. Undocumented immigrants are taken advantage of across the world. In Qatar, there were over 6,500 recorded migrant deaths during the construction of the stadiums for the FIFA 2022 World Cup. Sexual slavery is prevalent in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
In 2022, it was estimated 49.6 million people live in modern slavery, roughly a quarter of them children. This includes child trafficking, child soldiers, child marriage and child domestic slavery.9 In the United States between 2002 and 2017, over 200,000 minors were legally married, primarily to adults, with the youngest being only 10 years old.
Coming back to Torah, Tzvi Freeman offers this defense: “The Torah effects change not by imposing an exogenous order, but by revealing the inner, hidden order. The Torah must deal with the world as it is [while] inspiring us with its vision, pulling us into the future.”10 At a time when slaves were considered less than human, Torah reminds us – repeatedly – that we were once slaves and admonishes us to do better. Today, as the problem of slavery has only become worse, it still admonishes us to do better.
I will finish with the lyrics from a song written by Doug Mishkin on his Celebrate Passover album.
Once we were strangers in Egypt
Our people and our land were apart
But when Moses stood before that troubled sea
He made those waters part
Somewhere tonight lives a free man
Somewhere else freedom’s just a song of the heart
We must find the river flowing between them
And make those waters part
Troubled seas rising around us
Sometimes the Promised Land seems hidden from view
So we retell these stories, that’s how we start
To make those waters part
For more information, including ways you can help, please visit www.endslaverynow.org and https://truah.org/
1. https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-family-edition/devarim/the-teacher-as-hero/
2. https://hadar.org/torah-tefillah/resources/opening-our-hearts-and-our-hands
3. Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 15:12
4. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_slavery
6. Mishneh Torah, Sefer Kinyan 5:8:14
7. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45299245
8. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm
9. Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage, Geneva, September 2022
10. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm
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