This week’s haftara tells of the forced labor Shlomo HaMelekh imposed in order to build the Temple in Jerusalem (Melakhim I:5):

King Solomon imposed forced labor on all Israel; the levy came to 30,000 men. He sent them to the Lebanon in shifts of 10,000 a month: they would spend one month in the Lebanon and two months at home.

King Shlomo’s impressment seems similar to that of the Egyptians. After all, the Israelites in Egypt were not chattel slaves who were bought and sold. They were free people who were used by the king for legitimate public works. This point is emphasized by Chazal in the Midrash (Mechilta deRebbe Yishmael Yitro 5):

“Whom I took out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” This was bondage to the king. Or was it perhaps bondage to [other] slaves [i.e., individual masters]? When [the Torah] says “Who redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt,” [this shows] they were subordinate to the king.

It is true that Pharaoh imposed on the people “crushing” labor (avodas pareikh). But King Shlomo’s draft was also quite burdensome – three months a year of reserve duty! When King Shlomo dies, the people point out to his son Rekhovam (Melakhim I:12) “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke that your father laid on us, and we will serve you.” Rekhovam acknowledges their claim, stating: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father flogged you with whips, but I will flog you with scorpions.”

Indeed, a sovereign has broad powers of taxation over his subjects (Rambam Gezeila 5:12), which include levies of labor (Rambam Melakhim 4:1). We learn from the Gemara (Bava Basra 8a, SA CM 163) that a community is likewise empowered to impose participation in public works on its citizens.

What, then, was so terrible about the servitude the Jews endured in Egypt, which has become a symbol of tyranny for all mankind? The answer is that according to the Torah, kings do indeed have expansive powers but not unlimited or arbitrary ones. We can point to a few instances in which it seems that Pharaoh overstepped his constitutional limits:

Levies must be equitable. The Rambam rules (Gezeila 5:14) “Any law that a king decrees to be universally applicable, and not merely applying to one person, is not considered robbery. But whenever he takes from one person alone in a manner that does not conform to a known law, but rather seizes the property from the person arbitrarily, it is considered to be robbery.” The Torah makes clear that the crushing labor of the children of Israel was imposed by Pharaoh as an intentional hardship and not as part of his overall fiscal policy for Egypt.

Of course, equitable does not mean that everyone must be treated identically. It only requires clear, relevant criteria. The draft exemption given to yeshiva students since Israel’s founding is agreed upon by the government, publicized, and administered according to clear criteria. Hence, it is clearly valid according to Torah law. Indeed Chazal urged exempting Torah scholars from various levies (Bava Basra 8a, SA CM 163). Lehavdil, numerous precedent-setting decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court also affirmed that this arrangement is not vulnerable to legal challenges under Israeli law. (High court rulings 40/70, 910/86.)

The Jews were not subjects of Pharaoh. They were a distinct community enjoying royal patronage. This consideration actually exempts Pharaoh from the equitability requirement. But a sovereign is not allowed to prevent foreign nationals from leaving his country. The Ran (Nedarim 28a) goes further and says that the basis of the king’s authority is his power to expel anyone who doesn’t accept his rule, seemingly implying that even subjects are entitled to leave. Since the Torah  (Shemos 1:1) explicitly tells us that Pharoah’s concern was that the Jews might leave, they obviously did not have freedom of movement. Rashi understands this verse differently, but elsewhere (Shemos 18:9) affirms that the Jews were not only enslaved but also imprisoned.

This is in striking contrast to Shlomo HaMelekh, who ruled with the full agreement of the entire Jewish people. After his coronation, even his rival Adoniyah and Adoniyah’s supporters Yoav and Evyatar acknowledged Shlomo’s kingship (Melakhim I:1-2). We see also from the negotiations of the people’s representatives with Shlomo’s son Rekhovam that they had fully accepted Shlomo’s sovereignty over them and that the rule of Rekhovam would likewise be contingent on their agreement – which was not forthcoming.

Hence, even apart from Hashem’s commandment, Moshe’s demand that Pharaoh allow the Jewish people freedom of movement was completely justified according to the universal human principles of legitimate use of public authority. Torah law insists that authority be exercised only by those who obtained it by legitimate agreement of the people and their recognized representatives, and only in a consistent way based on law, not in an arbitrary way based on whim.