Audio Summaries of the daily Chumash portions In loving memory of Ousher Zelig ben Myer HaLevi Z”LTo sponsor an episode please visit: https://itistaught.com/support-this-project/To get the daily chumash summaries in your email click here https://substack.com/profile/182692001-sarede-rachel-switzer?utm_source=profile-page.Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsPlease consider leaving a review on the platform of your choice!For comments and inquiries, email itistaught@gmail.comLaws Concerning Slavery, Murder, Parents, Kidnapping and Damages for InjuriesThe Chumash now outlines a series of more specific laws. This Parsha directly follows the previous Parsha to educate us that just as the Ten Commandments were given directly from G-d at Mount Sinai, so were these laws.Also, these more legalistic laws were placed adjacent to the laws concerning instructions involving the alter to teach the Israelites that the Sanhedrin should be next to the holy temple.G-d instructs Moshe to really educate the Israelites in these laws not just so they can memorize them, but so that they really understand them so they are ready to keep.G-d says that the Israelites should not bring legal matters to non jewish courts, but rather settle things in Jewish courts. Bringing legal matters to non jewish courts is a desecration of G-d's name in that it is giving higher importance to the testimony of non jewish deities.The laws:If a master buys a Hebrew slave, who has been sold into slavery by a court as a sentence for committing theft*, he shall work for the master for 6 years and on the 7th shall be set free.*Side note: A Hebrew slave who sells himself into slavery due to his severe poverty is discussed later on in Vayikra 25:39.If this Hebrew slave entered into servitude as a single man, so shall he leave; i.e. the master shall not give him a Canaanite maidservant from whom to father slaves. If he were married to a Hebrew woman upon entering servitude, his master shall be responsible to provide not only for him but for his wife and children as well up until the point that he is freed, at which time the master is no longer responsible for them anymore.If the master does give this Hebrew slave a Canaanite maidservant from which to father slaves (which is only allowed if the man already had a Hebrew wife before becoming a slave), upon being freed, the Canaanite maidservant and her children are owned by the master. An Israelite maidservant would be set free together with the slave, or even earlier were she to show signs of puberty.If the slave says that he loves his master and this Canaanite maidservant and the children that he bore from her and doesn't want to be set free, then the master shall bring the slave to court which sold him to the master to repay what he stole and they shall bring him to an upright door* and pierce his right ear to the door, and he shall be that master's slave "forever"**. The reason for this piercing of the ear is related to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. In the case of a slave who was sold into slavery by the court for not being able to repay his theft, this piercing is a sign that the same ear which heard "Thou Shalt Not Steal" from Mount Sinai went ahead and stole. And in the case of a slave who sold themselves into slavery due to being severely impoverished, this is in relation to his ear being the same one that heard on Mount Sinai about how the Israelites were only to be G-d's slaves now and no longer the Egyptians, yet he nevertheless sold himself to a human master. Rabbi Shimon says that the significance of the piercing being connected to a door and a mezuzah is in commemoration of G-d passing over the doors that had mezuzah's on them in Egypt to signify that we were slaves of G-d and not slaves of slaves (i.e of the Egyptians).*Side note: Upright like a mezuzah.**Side note: This doesn't literally mean forever, but rather just till the end of the jubilee, as 50 years is considered "forever". One does not have to serve a full 50 years however, rather even if this servitude starts in the middle or towards the end of the jubilee, it ends at the end of it.If a man sells his minor aged daughter to be a handmaiden, she shall work for either 6 years, the end of the jubilee, or until she shows sign of puberty - whichever of these three comes first. If her master caused damage to her eye or to her tooth, he is to pay appropriate compensation to her upon release.A Canaanite slave is released if the master knocks out his tooth, blinds his eye or mutilates the tips of any of his 24 limbs. Not so is a Hebrew maidservant, nor a Hebrew slave.If this maidservant which was purchased is not pleasing for the master to marry (the money he used to purchase her was meant to be his payment to marry her), he must set her free and the cost of her redemption should not be the original amount that he purchased her for but rather he should calculate as if she were a hired worker for him and deduct that from ...
