Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

We take a deep dive into the Torah's laws regarding the treatment of slaves. While slavery as an institution was never abolished by the Torah - slavery as a concept would not come into broad question until the 18th century - the Torah can be understood to be a revolutionary document for its time, and to have planted the seeds of ultimate equality under the law. The Torah insists that slaves possess basic dignity and even have rights, because they are human beings created in the image of God.