The halacha is that if one acquires a Jewish slave, after six years he must let him go free. The Yerushalmi in Rosh Hashanah says that this halacha was given to us before we left Metzrayim. The obvious question is, why did Hashem have to give us this mitzvah right at the time when we were leaving Metzrayim? This mitzvah did not even apply until we entered Eretz Yisrael. Why couldn’t it wait until Kabbalas HaTorah, when we were given all the rest of the mitzvos?
Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz zt”l explains that after one has acquired a slave and he has worked for him for six years, it is very difficult to just simply set him free. A master is not generally in tune with the feelings of yearning that a slave feels for his emancipation. If he would sense his slave’s feelings, it would make freeing him much easier.
Hashem knew that the only way we would be able to keep this mitzvah is if we would internalize the feelings that a slave experiences when he is freed. Hashem wanted us to seize that moment and remember how we felt when we left slavery, in order to enable us to set our slaves free later on. Therefore, specifically as we were leaving our masters’ land and tasting freedom for the first time, Hashem commanded us that after six years of servitude we must set our Jewish slaves free.
We learn a great lesson from this. Very often we experience a moment of hisorerus or inspiration in which we immediately develop aspirations to better ourselves. The Torah is teaching us that the proper way to ensure that the inspiration remains long after that initial moment is by acting upon it while we are still experiencing the hisorerus.
Another example of this concept can be found in the rainbow. Hashem promised Noach that He would never bring a global mabul again. Hashem said that when He will want to bring another mabul, a rainbow would appear in a cloud and Hashem will be reminded of His promise never to bring a mabul again (Rashi). One can ask, why does Hashem need the rainbow to remind him? Can’t He remember without a rainbow? The answer is of course Hashem can remember that He promised not to bring a mabul. Hashem wanted to teach us that the proper way to keep a resolution is to attach the feelings that we initially had to something tangible that will later remind us of those feelings.
The Gemara in Avoda Zara (17a) tells us that a person can acquire Olam Haba in just one moment. We all have moments in our lives in which Hashem gives us opportunities to achieve great things. Our job is to seize those moments and keep that initial feeling vibrant throughout our lives. That is the lesson that we derive from the rainbow, and that is why Hashem gave us the halachos of setting our slaves free during our own emancipation. Hashem wanted us to internalize the feelings we experienced while being set free in order for us to keep them vibrant for the future when we would need them most. Throughout our lives we must attach our aspirations to something physical in order for them to endure long past their initial moment.
May we all crystalize our inspirations and develop to greater heights, amen.