Professor Tucker addresses the challenge of laws that appear to be less uplifting than others, such as laws about a father selling his daughter into servitude, when it is permissible to beat a slave, and so forth. He refers to David Hartman z/l, who wrote that “Halacha should be engaged as an open-ended educational framework rather than a binding normative one”.
Rabbi Richman informs us that the nature of the text changes in Mishpatim, from storytelling to laws. In fact, the Torah interrupts itself from the Revelation to insert the long list of 53 laws, implying that they are attributes of the Law; details that God taught Moshe on top of the mountain.
Rabbi Sacks cites Rashi, stating that “you shall set before them” implies that you shall teach them the laws so that they understand them, not to simply memorize them. Furthermore, just as the Decalogue was given at Sinai, so were the details.