Torah Study Blog

Last week we were reminded that, when the Israelites were freed from bondage to the Egyptians, they were sent away with precious objects so that they would “not go away empty-handed” (Exodus 3:21). After 430 years in bondage, our sages thought that was the least the Egyptians could do for the enslaved Israelites!

This week we looked at the issue of slavery in the Bible.

Leviticus 25 tells us, “as for your Israelite kinsmen, no one shall rule ruthlessly over the other” (Leviticus 25:46). God has claimed the Israelites for himself and, therefore, this passage says that an Israelite cannot become enslaved to someone else. If there is an Israelite in need, the community is expected to offer assistance, including employment, but never slavery for the Israelite.

However, people of other communities may be acquired as slaves and the foreign slaves, “shall become your property: you may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property for all time” (Leviticus 29:46). It is passages like this that should remind us that the Bible was used by slaveholders in America to support their position.

After reading the passage in Leviticus we might assume there were no Israelite slaves. But we know that is not correct! The fact is that people could get into financial difficulty and choose to sell themselves, or their children, into slavery. Unlike Leviticus, Exodus 21 clearly outlines that a Hebrew man could sell himself into slavery, but it would only be binding for six years; in the seventh year he would go free.

However, the chapter goes on to tell us that a man could sell his daughter as a slave but she will not be released after six years. A female sold into slavery would have had the purpose of making children for the household. Therefore, a daughter sold into slavery has the same rights as a wife, including that she must be provided for with food, clothing and conjugal rights. Rabbi Jaech pointed out to us that this passage may reflect the reality that a female could move up in society by the position of the

husband, whereas a male could not. A certain level of obligation must be met by the purchaser of a female.

Deuteronomy 15 is another chapter where the institution of slavery is addressed. The chapter begins by saying that, if the Israelites do everything God wants, there will never be any needy people in the community! However, in a reflection of reality, Deuteronomy 15:11 says, “there will never cease to be needy ones in your land.”

Unlike the passages in Exodus 21, the passages in Deuteronomy 15 say that any Hebrew sold to you, man or woman, shall go free in the seventh year. The seventh year is called the “sabbatical” year and it was meant to be an economic reset. The sabbatical year was a utopian idea when debts would be forgiven; a time when the rich cannot keep getting richer while the poor keep get poorer. It’s a lovely concept, along the lines of a utopian ideal of communism. It did not work in reality, but Rabbi Jaech mentioned that it was not surprising that there were many Jews supporting the Communist Party in America in the early- to mid-twentieth century.

We know from passages preserved in the Talmud that some Israelites continued to sell themselves into slavery into the 2nd century C.E. The passages indicate that it would have been understood to sell oneself into slavery to another Israelite, but to sell oneself into slavery to a gentile was a great sin. Anyone who sold himself to a gentile could not be redeemed, or bought out of slavery, by the community – but, upon his death, his children must be redeemed.

Scholarship shows that by the time of the Byzantine Empire, around the 4th century CE, Jews were no longer allowed to own slaves.

Let’s circle back to present day America and slavery. As we mentioned earlier, the Bible was used by slaveholders in America to support their position. Rabbi Jaech wondered how proponents of slavery were able to justify the Runaway Slave laws in light of Deuteronomy 23:16-17, which read: “You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. He shall live with you in any place he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill- treat him.

Although the institution of slavery is outlawed in America today an organization called the Equal Justice Initiative, founded by Bryan Stevenson in Montgomery Alabama, argues that slavery is alive and well in the system of mass incarceration we have today. If you are interested in learning more about that, please read his book Just Mercy, or catch the HBO documentary True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality. Additionally, at the end of this year a major motion picture starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx will be released which will portray some of Bryan Stevenson’s work in that field.

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter