Exodus – 6:13 – And God said to Moshe and to Aaron to command the Jews and Pharo, the King of Egypt, to let the Jews out of the land of Egypt.

Jerusalem Talmud: Rosh HaShanah – Chapter 3, Halacha 5 – “To command the Jews” – Rav Shmuel the son of Rav Yitzchak taught as follows: “what did God command the Jews about in this verse? God commanded the Jews at that time regarding the law of freeing all the slaves every seven years.” This teaching is in accordance with the teaching of Rabbi Chila who said that the Jews were only punished due to [their lack of adherence to] the commandment of freeing the slaves every seven years.  This is derived from the biblical scripture in Jeremiah 34:14 “At the end of every seven years you shall send free your Hebrew brother”.

Torah Temimah Colloquial Translation on Note #11 and Note 12:

Note 11: This teaching Rav Shmuel’s can be explained by looking at verse 11 just prior to our verse. In verse 11 it says “Go, speak to Pharo, the king of Egypt, to send the children of Israel from his land”. Then afterwards in our verse it says to command the Jews and it doesn’t explain what to command them. The phrase at the end of our verse 13 “to let the Jews go” only applies to Pharo and not to the Jews. Therefore, Rav Shmuel teaches that God was also commanding the Jews regarding the law of sending slaves free. That is to say, the same thing that God was commanding Pharo, he was also commanding the Jews.

Note 12: It appears that the teaching of our Gemora relies on the prior verse in Jeremiah, verse 34:13. “I made a covenant with your forefathers on the day that I brought them out of Egypt, from the house of bondage saying, ‘at the end of seven years you shall send free your Hebrew brother who sold himself to you’. We don’t find anywhere where God makes such a commandment on the day that he is freeing the Jews from Egypt. In our verse, however, we find a commandment without an explanation of what the commandment is. Therefore, we explain one closed verse with another closed verse and teach that it is our verse that hints at where God taught the Jews about the importance of freeing slaves.

Translator’s Note: I think this teaching from the Gemora is wonderful. To me, it stresses the importance of always keeping in mind, no matter what our own circumstances are, the moral imperatives that we have to obey. The Torah Temimah explicitly says “the same thing that God was commanding Pharo, he was also commanding the Jews”.