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The severe, practical limitations of that long ago time and place.


The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The changes in society are cosmetic, to say the least. So today people do not worship idols such as Ba'al, Ra, Zeus, Apollo, and Pharoh. Instead they worship Media, Technology, Popular Culture, Consumerism, and the ever popular Mammon. But the concept behind the worship is the same. What is the difference between the indentured servitude described in the Torah and the stereotypes that the media tries to hoist onto us?

The Torah, strange as it may seem, was not written for a specific time and place. The Torah is above time and space. Someone once told me that the reason why Jews are prohibited from eating pork is because in biblical times, pigs were known to be infested with parasites, and as a result, they were a danger to humans. That is totally wrong. The reason why Jews do not eat pig is because there is an explicit biblical prohibition against eating pig. That is why we still do not eat pig to this very day.

To be even more explicit, the fact that the generation that left Egypt received the Torah has absolutely no bearing on the fact that evey individual Jew alive from that day to today received the Torah.

Things done for a specic time / place can be enacted by the Rabbis in times of need, but the Torah is eternal.