The Shul's Blog

According to tradition the Torah was given to Moses by the Almighty as a completed document. Such a concept of revelation was an accepted method, which explained how God could speak to human kind. There was no inkling that revelation might be a progressive process because the concept of progress was unknown and not to be discovered for thousands of years.

There were hardly any machines in ancient times. People used animals to carry heavy loads or just as a means of transportation. Irrigation was done by hand and so was harvesting. The most advanced machine that our ancients had was a sickle. If they had swords, that was the ancient machine that they used for war. Because they had few machines, they used life to complete their tasks. They had horses and mules and even people to help them with the most minor of tasks.

The people they used to help them complete tasks were called slaves, and it is precisely the law of slaves that we learn about in the beginning of this sedra. Had the slave owners had an inkling that machines could be developed to do the tasks of slaves, they would have used those machines in place of forced human labor. Alas they could not imagine a world without slavery, or in an easier terminology they could not imagine a world with progress.

So an equitable manner of treating slaves is included in the Torah. Thousands of years later when machines took the place of slave labor a progressive revelation held that slave labor was sinful and forbidden.

Progress not only eliminated the institution of slavery, it also changed our concepts of revelation.