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    Labor On The Bimah

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    Eco Superior
    The document discusses how the Israelites were enslaved and made to do "rigorous service" without limits in Egypt. It notes that after leaving Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to treat their own workers justly and not abuse or overwork them. The Torah's narrative of the Israelites' liberation from slavery establishes protecting workers' safety, dignity, and fair treatment as central to Judaism. The document asks if modern society and businesses will provide these protections like wages and benefits, or continue exploiting workers as Egypt did to the Israelites.

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    Labor On The Bimah

    Uploaded by

    Eco Superior
    120 views1 page
    The document discusses how the Israelites were enslaved and made to do "rigorous service" without limits in Egypt. It notes that after leaving Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to treat their own workers justly and not abuse or overwork them. The Torah's narrative of the Israelites' liberation from slavery establishes protecting workers' safety, dignity, and fair treatment as central to Judaism. The document asks if modern society and businesses will provide these protections like wages and benefits, or continue exploiting workers as Egypt did to the Israelites.

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    Labor on the Bimah

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    The document discusses how the Israelites were enslaved and made to do "rigorous service" without limits in Egypt. It notes that after leaving Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to treat their own workers justly and not abuse or overwork them. The Torah's narrative of the Israelites' liberation from slavery establishes protecting workers' safety, dignity, and fair treatment as central to Judaism. The document asks if modern society and businesses will provide these protections like wages and benefits, or continue exploiting workers as Egypt did to the Israelites.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    120 views1 page

    Labor On The Bimah

    Uploaded by

    Eco Superior
    The document discusses how the Israelites were enslaved and made to do "rigorous service" without limits in Egypt. It notes that after leaving Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to treat their own workers justly and not abuse or overwork them. The Torah's narrative of the Israelites' liberation from slavery establishes protecting workers' safety, dignity, and fair treatment as central to Judaism. The document asks if modern society and businesses will provide these protections like wages and benefits, or continue exploiting workers as Egypt did to the Israelites.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Labor in the Bimah

    I n Exodus 1:14 the Torah describes the Egyptians enslavement of the


    Israelites thus:
    And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and
    in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; all their service,
    wherein they made them serve, was with rigor.
    What does the Torah mean that the Israelites were made to serve “with
    rigor?” According to the common understanding, this term refers to
    enforced work without limit, work without purpose or end – work in
    which a slave serves utterly at the whim of the slave master.

    Notably, once they have left Egypt, the Israelites’ experience of “rigor-
    ous service” directly informs the way they are commanded to treat
    their own workers when they settle in their own land. According to
    Deuteronomy 24:14:
    You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow
    countryman or a stranger…else he will cry to God against you and
    you will incur guilt.
    In other words, ensuring the safety and dignity of workers is not merely
    one commandment among many – it is coded into the very DNA of the
    Torah’s most central narrative. The birth of the people Israel is rooted
    in a story of exploited laborers and their eventual journey to redemp-
    tion. Indeed, in a very real sense, their essential mission is repeatedly
    framed as a conscious disavowal of the slave masters of Egypt.

    Thus, the question the Torah places before us is quite clear: what is the
    nature of the society we seek to create? Will it be an Egypt or a Prom-
    ised Land?
    • Will we ensure that workers receive basic protections under the law
    - or will we seek only greater exploitation in service of the bottom
    line?
    • Will we provide laborers with the dignity of livable wages and ad-
    equate benefits – or will we only see sanctity in greater and greater
    shareholder profits?
    • Will we allow workers the right to organize and engage their
    employers in collective bargaining – or will we allow workers to be
    intimidated into collective silence and compliance?

    The answer, as ever, is up to us.

    Rabbi Brant Rosen, Jewish Reconstructionist


    Congregation, Evanston, Illinois Interfaith Worker Justice
    www.iwj.org

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