Lest We Become Like Pharoah...or like slaves, or unable to tell the difference

(20) You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (21) You [communal leaders] shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. (22) If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me, (23) and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you to the sword, and your own wives shall become widows and your children orphans. (24) If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor; exact no interest from them. (25) If you take your neighbor’s garment in pledge, you must return it before the sun sets;

(15) Then the overseers of the Israelites came to Pharaoh and cried: “Why do you deal thus with your servants? (16) No straw is issued to your servants, yet they demand of us: Make bricks! Thus your servants are being beaten, when the fault is with your own people.” (17) He replied, “You are shirkers, shirkers! That is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to יהוה.’ (18) Be off now to your work! No straw shall be issued to you, but you must produce your quota of bricks!”

(14) You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow Israelite or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. (15) You must pay out the wages due on the same day, before the sun sets, for the worker is needy and urgently depends on it; else a cry to ha-Shem will be issued against you and you will incur guilt.

To pay a worker their wage on time, as [Deuteronomy 24:15] states: "Pay him his wage on the day it is due."

Not to hurt a convert with words, as [Exodus 22:20] states: "And do not wrong a convert...."

Not to oppress any widow or orphan, as [Exodus 22:21] states: "Do not oppress any widow or orphan."

A person is obligated to show great care for orphans and widows because their spirits are very low and their feelings are depressed. This applies even if they are wealthy. We are commanded to [show this attention] even to a king's widow and his orphans as [implied by Exodus 22:21]: "Do not mistreat any widow or orphan."
How should one deal with them? One should only speak to them gently and treat them only with honor. One should not cause pain to their persons with [overbearing] work or aggravate their feelings with harsh words and [one should] show more consideration for their financial interests than for one's own. Anyone who vexes or angers them, hurts their feelings, oppresses them, or causes them financial loss transgresses this prohibition. Surely this applies if one beats them or curses them.

Even though [a person who violates] this prohibition is not [liable for] lashes, the retribution one suffers for its [violation] is explicitly stated in the Torah (ibid. 22:23): "I will display My anger and slay you with the sword." There is a covenant between them and the One who spoke and created the world that whenever they cry out because they have been wronged, they will be answered as [ibid.:22] states: "When they cry out to Me, I will surely hear their cry."
When does the above apply? When one causes them suffering for one's own purposes. However, it is permitted for a teacher to cause them suffering while teaching them Torah, or a craft, or in order to train them in proper behavior. Nevertheless, one should not treat them in the same manner as when treating others, but rather make a distinction with regard to them and treat them with gentility, great mercy, and honor for [Proverbs 22:22] states: "For God will take up their cause."

This applies to both those orphaned from their father and those orphaned from their mother. Until when are they considered orphans in the context [of this mitzvah]? Until they no longer need a mature individual to support, instruct, and care for them and are able to see to all their own needs by themselves, like other adults.

(23) A long time after that, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God. (24) God heard their moaning, and God remembered the covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. (25) God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.

(5) You shall then recite as follows before your God יהוה: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. (6) The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. (7) We cried to ha-Shem, the God of our ancestors, and ha-Shem heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression.

And how much is a measure sufficient to sound a blast ("tekiah")? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel explained: Enough that when one holds it in their hand, it can be seen protruding on one side of their hand and on the other side. If the sound of the shofar is high or deep or dry, it is fit for blowing, as the Torah does not require a particular sound, and all sounds coming from a shofar are fit.

(9) Away from me, all you evildoers, for ha-Shem heeds the sound of my weeping. (10) Ha-Shem heeds my plea, ha-Shem accepts my prayer.

(2) Bitterly she weeps in the night, Her cheek wet with tears. There is none to comfort her Of all her friends. All her allies have betrayed her; They have become her foes.

Alternatively, the term “at night” indicates that with regard to anyone who cries at night, his voice is heard due to the ambient silence. Alternatively, the term “at night” indicates that in the case of anyone who cries at night, the stars and the constellations cry with him. Alternatively, the term “at night” indicates that in the case of anyone who cries at night, one who hears his voice is touched by his suffering and cries with him.

There was an incident involving one woman, the neighbor of Rabban Gamliel, whose son died, and she would cry over his death at night. Rabban Gamliel heard her voice and cried with her until his eyelashes fell out. The next day his students noticed that he had been crying, and they removed the woman from his neighborhood so that Rabban Gamliel could sleep.

I have also seen to connect to the laws of paying hired workers their wages, because this matter stands at the pinnacle of the world. For upon this are multiple negative mitzvot as explained in the Torah. There are people who neglect them, in their many transgressions, and treat lightly the delay in payment, for just about any reason. For example, they are too lazy to go and take their money, when someone else is holding it for them. Or to break up a high-value coin, in order to pay a worker on time. Technically they are obligated in all this, even if the worker is rich, and all the more so if they are poor. In that case, the owner is obligated to see that the wages are paid on time, in order that the worker has what they need to live, for themselves and their household.

As the Torah says in Parshat Ki Teitzei: "You must pay out the wages due on the same day, before the sun sets, for the worker is needy and urgently depends on it; else a cry to ha-Shem will be issued against you and you will incur guilt." Please go and see what the holy Zohar brings: The reason for this last injunction is to be found in the verse, “In his day you shall give him his wages, and the sun shall not go down upon him” (Deut. 24, 15): that is to say, that you be not gathered in from the world on his account before your time comes. From this we learn another thing, that if one restores the soul of a poor man, even if his time has arrived to depart from the world, God restores his soul and gives him a further lease of life.’ (85)

“In his day you shall give him his wages" -- come and hear! To withhold the wage of a poor man is like taking his life and the life of his household. As he diminishes their souls, so God diminishes his days, and cuts off his soul from the other world. For all the breaths which issue from his mouth for the whole of that day ascend and stand before the Almighty, and afterwards his soul and the souls of his household ascend and stand in those breaths. Thus, even if length of days and many blessings had been decreed for that man, they are all uprooted from him and withdrawn from him.

[see translation above, starting "come and hear!"]

Not only that, but nor does his soul mount aloft. Therefore R. Abba said: God save us from them and from their plaint!

And the same is true even if it is a rich man, and his right is withheld from him, and all the more so for the poor. Hence R. Hamnuna, when a hired worker had finished his work, used to give him his wage and say to him: Take your soul which you have entrusted to my hand! Take your deposit! (87) And even if the other asked him to keep it for him, he was unwilling to do so, saying: It is not fitting that your body shall be deposited with me, still less then your soul, which should be deposited only with God.

Why is it written, “On his day thou shalt give him his hire”? See more there. [Because every day is under the surveillance of another, a supernal Day, and if he does not give him his soul on that day, it is as if he impairs that supernal Day.’]

This pasuk that we cited above, we can understand how one may not fulfill it, even if one does pay their worker. They might delay payment, and not provide the wages on time. All the more so if they withhold the wages entirely, and not pay the worker, or reduce the wages from what had initially been agreed to, even by one p'ruta (small coin). For this is actual theft, and a violation of the mitzvah: "You shall not defraud your fellow. You shall not commit robbery" (Vayikra 19:13), as the gemara brings (Bava Metzia 61a) [that withholding wages violates *two* mitzvot, actual theft being the second one).

Similarly by means on the Prophets has ha-Shem strictly warned of this (Malachi 3:5): "

I will step forward to contend against you, and I will act as a relentless accuser against those who have no fear of Me: Who practice sorcery, who commit adultery, who swear falsely, who cheat laborers of their hire...[, and who subvert [the cause of] the widow, orphan, and stranger, said the GOD of Hosts]. Behold, the Holy One of Blessing is acting directly as judge and witness, to quickly avenge any wage theft, as is brought in Sukkah (29b): "On account of four matters the property of homeowners is confiscated by the state treasury [timyon]: On account of those who delay payment of the salary of hired laborers (see Leviticus 19:13; Deuteronomy 24:15); on account of those who withhold the salary of hired laborers and do not pay at all, etc."

Through our many sins, there are people who let themselves off the hook and reduce the wages due to the hired worker, and do not realize that it is their own souls at stake, for they have transgressed multiple negative mitzvot that are straight from the Torah. It is also the case, through our many sins, by these people, that the wage-earner pounds on their door night and day, but they refuse to hear. For they treat it as too minor a detail to deal with, and don't direct their heart to the laws of Torah, which do not distinguish, whether it is a dispute over a small coin or over a hundred large bills. And many of them, who are upright people of good character that fulfill the other mitzvot of the Torah with expertise and halachic knowledge, while this mitzvah of fully paying the worker on time is lax in their hands, through our many sins, even for occasions that only require a typical amount of effort.

It is my understanding that all this occurs because of the limited and lacking knowledge of this halacha. That if it were known, of course people would be eager to fulfill this mitzvah at its proper times, in order to uphold this positive mitzvah of "paying wages on time." Just as everyone who's Jewish is eager to fulfill other Torah mitzvot that depend on timeliness, like shofar and sukkah and lulav and so forth. Do you see any Jew, that passes up the opportunity to make the bracha over shofar and lulav all the way until nighttime? On the contrary, everyone pushes themselves to fulfill the mitzvah at the earlier possible opportunity in the morning, and delights over that, that they merit to fulfill the mitzot of their Blessed Creator in the proper way.

And if for this mitzvah, which is also among the positive mitzvot of the Torah, and to which the Torah added several negative commandments on the same subject, how much more so should our willfulness be overcome. Thus I have placed upon my heart the understanding, with ha-Shem's help, to spread this knowledge to all, and I have gathered all the details found in this halacha, in order that everyone should be eager to fulfill this mitzvah according to its halacha. May this sweeten what was bitter, with the help of my Rock and my Redeemer.

(13) You shall not defraud your fellow [Israelite]. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. (14) You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am ha-Shem.

The Sages said: Indeed, the prohibition against robbery is superfluous. But if the prohibition against robbery can be derived from the prohibitions against interest and exploitation, why do I need the prohibition written in the Torah with regard to robbery? The Gemara answers: That verse is not written to prohibit a standard case of robbery; rather, it serves to prohibit the action of one who withholds the wages of a hired laborer. In that case, unlike robbery, the employer does not take money from the laborer; he merely fails to pay him his wages. The Gemara challenges: With regard to one who withholds the wages of a hired laborer, it is explicitly written: “You shall not oppress a hired laborer who is poor and destitute” (Deuteronomy 24:14). There is no need to derive this prohibition from the verse concerning robbery. The Gemara answers: It is written so that withholding the wages of a hired laborer always involves violating two prohibitions.

Rav said: On account of four matters the property of homeowners is confiscated by the state treasury [timyon]: On account of those who delay payment of the salary of hired laborers (see Leviticus 19:13; Deuteronomy 24:15); on account of those who withhold the salary of hired laborers and do not pay at all; and on account of those who throw off the yoke of communal responsibility from their own necks and place that yoke on the necks of their friends; and on account of the arrogance of those who, due to their wealth, exercise power over the community. And the punishment for arrogance is equal to them all. However, with regard to the humble it is written: “The humble will inherit the land and delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (Psalms 37:11).

(10) When you make a loan of any sort to your compatriot, you must not enter the house to seize the pledge. (11) You must remain outside, while the party to whom you made the loan brings the pledge out to you. (12) If that party is needy, you shall not go to sleep in that pledge; (13) you must return the pledge at sundown, that its owner may sleep in the cloth and bless you; and it will be to your merit before your ha-Shem your God.

"If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you" (Shmot 22:24). This seems redundant -- it could have just said, "lend money to the poor", but the verse begins with "My people", and afterwards "the poor", and aftewards, "your neighbor" as in [v. 25] "If you take your neighbor’s garment in pledge." Rather, it's because the verse wants to command about *two* things, therefore it provides two prefaces, that you should be obligated loan out money in both aspects.

The first is from the side that the verse includes the peoples of the land and the conduct of the government. This applies at a time when the nation's people and its workers lack provisions -- each person is able to those [in need], relying on the government for repayment of the debt, since it's on the government to provide sustenance for its people and to give to them just as it provides for its ruling elite. Therefore everyone can be confident about repayment of the debt. So it is for the poor person who dwells amidst the people, for ha-Shem is the one who extends credit. Ha-Shem is the lender for the unfortunate, and the one who receives the loan is indebted to ha-Shem, not the lender.

The second aspect is that more than the poor person gets from the transaction, you get from it: "It is taught: Rabbi Meir would say: An opponent may bring an argument against you and say to you: If your God loves the poor, for what reason does ha-Shem not support them directly? In such a case, say to them: Ha-Shem commands us to act as God's agents in sustaining the poor, so that through them we will be credited with the performance of mitzvot and therefore be saved from the judgment of Gehenna" (b. Bava Batra 10a).

If so, you are providing the poor person for their ephemeral life, and they are providing you for your eternal life. You give them a perutah (small coin), and the Holy One of Blessing repays you twice over. Thus it says (Ruth 2:19): "“The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.” And the rabbis, may their memories be a blessing, said (Vayikra Rabba 34:8, at the end): "Rabbi Yehoshua taught: More than what the homeowner does for the poor person, the poor person does for the homeowner, as Ruth says to Naomi: 'The name of the man for whom I acted today is Boaz' (Ruth 2:19). 'Who acted for me' is not written here, but rather, 'for whom I acted.'"