[Avodah] Freeing a Slave

[Zev Sero]

On 1/08/2011 4:55 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> It seems that in the Y-mi, shikhrur avadim is a good thing. See Pesachim
> 2:2, vilna 15a.

I'm using the version at: http://mechon-mamre.org/b/r/r2302.htm which
appears almost identically at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/b/r/r3504.htm
(daf 23b).  Does this differ from the version in front of you?


> There is a mishnah that says that a Jew who uses chameitz
> as collateral for Pesach to secure a loan from a non-Jew may not use
> the chameitz after Pesach. Collateral does not sufficiently remove it
> from his reshus, and so he violated bal yeira'eh.


> However, when it comes to freeing an eved, Rav says either the owner or
> the lender could free the eved, and R' Yochanan holds only the owner. So,
> the gemara cites that mishnah as a question on Rav.

1. It's a braisa (in psachim it's abbreviated as "mtny'", but in gittin
it's spelled out in full as "masnisa").

2. It says the opposite; the Jew is the lender and the goy is the borrower;
the chametz originally belongs to the goy, and the mishnah says it remains
permitted.  Therefore this would seem to prove R Yochanan's position, that
collateral belongs to the original owner, not to the lender.



> R' Yudan [ie Yehudah] answers that "qal hu beshikhrur". And he quotes
> another mishnah: Someone who makes his slave a security -- if [the
> borrower] sells him, he is not sold, if he frees him, the [slave] is
> not freed.


1. If he frees him he *is* freed.  At least in the version I'm looking at.
2. The borrower?!  Surely the lender.


> Freeing a slave is a value which motivates a qulah.

What?!  How did you jump to *that* conclusion?  Seriously, how do you
see any sort of value statement in R Yudan's answer?  It's not there in
the words.  Nor is it supported by any of the following discussion.  And
of course it contradicts an explicit

Also, how is this a kulah?  It's easy on the slave, but hard on the lender!
I see nothing on the page about leniency, merely a value-free statement
that an eved is easy to free.  That's just like saying nitroglycerin is
easy to explode; that's neither a kulah nor a chumrah, but merely a neutral
statement of fact.  Were you misled by the word "kal"?

-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin