And the traces of that transforming knowledge abound in the Torah's legal sections. Though slaves are indeed the property of their owners, the law intervenes to protect them against murder and injury. According to Bible scholar Nahum Sarna these restrictions on the freedom of action of slave owners have no parallel in the legal literature of the ancient Near East, and again I feel the weight of Israel's bondage behind these laws. Similarly, the Egyptian experience prompts concern for the stranger, the non-ethnic resident. Not once, but twice does our parasha warn against abusing the vulnerable non-Israelite in our midst, and each time the admonition is anchored in the past.
History clearly impacts here on the spirit and contours of halakha.
Even as the bitter taste of slavery honed Israel's moral sense, the exhilaration of the exodus, of God's presence in history, dictated its acceptance of the Torah. Revelation could not precede redemption. A rabbinic tale recounts how God peddled the Ten Commandments to many nations before Israel finally accepted them. While according to this midrash, each nation found some part of the Decalogue offensive to its lifestyle, the real reason, I believe, that they all rejected the offer was that they had no firsthand experience of God. For them the Torah was but disembodied law, unrelated to the felt experience of God in their national history.