[Avodah] Torah and Slavery

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, February 21, 2007 5:11 pm, R Jonathan Baker wrote:
: Funny, though, I've been having the "slavery is inherently evil"
: vs. "the Torah permits, even semi-approvingly, enslavement of
: non-Jews, albeit with restrictions beyond what the American
: South had", on another Jewish list.

"Semi-approvingly"? I'm arguing that the Torah permits it in scenarios where
that's what the neighboring countries are doing. When the economy requires
slavery to prevent failure, poverty, and even worse ills, then Hashem says
"this is how to do it".

(The Roman Empire or the 19th cent US were both eras in which the need to feed
the masses could not be met without the cheap labor. Both were cases of a
rapidly expanding population and growth on the frontiers. The same economic
pressures creates pseudo-slavery in sweatshops. But at least there is the
human dignity of not having qinyan haguf. Once the industrial revolution
provided a moral alternative, more efficient farming per person, places that
could leverage that technology had the luxury to clamor to do away with
slavery. Brazil freed its slaves not long after the US, without a civil war to
compel the issue.)

But halakhah doesn't condone slavery as much as limit its ills. In a case
where someone must choose least of evils, this is the best possible way to do
slavery.

The eved ivri isn't a slave -- no qinyah guf, provisions against making it
permanent, etc... But this too seems to only be condoned in the case of
geneivah. And being cared for by someone who will teach the criminal
marketable skills seems to me to be a sound alternative over throwing him into
prison with other criminals for peers.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter