[Avodah] amah ivriah

[via Avodah]

Someone wrote to me off-list:
 
 

    >> Your comment, "When a man buys an amah ivriya he has to marry her or 
 give her to his son as a >>  wife, or let her go free", is, I fear, 
misleading.   


>> You make it  sound as though he has an obligation to marry her himself 
or give her in  marriage to his >>son, or else to let her go free. In fact, 
yiud is not  an obligation but a privilege (though by exercising it, the 
>>purchaser  fulfills a mitzva).  If neither he nor his son marries her, she 
remains  an amah until she >>completes six years of servitude or reaches 
puberty,  whichever comes first -- which would have been >>the case had there been 
 no din of yiud.






>>>>>
I stand corrected.  I was in fact under the impression  that the master has 
an obligation to marry her or give her to his son as a  wife.  See Shmos 
21:8 and Rashi there.  The pasuk says if he doesn't  marry her then "vehefdah" 
-- he releases her. I took that to mean that if, after  she has worked for 
him some period of time -- let's say two years or three, but  no more than 
six -- if he doesn't want to marry her, then he has to set her  free.  But I 
was mistaken.  I see on a more careful reading that Rashi  only says he has 
to make it easier for her to ransom herself, by pro-rating the  buy-back 
price.  And what does it mean "he has to release her...."?   He is halachically 
obligated to do it, or only, if he's a mensh that's what  he'll do?  I 
don't know.  I guess the latter.
 
On the words "asher lo ye'ada" where the ksiv  is "lo" spelled with an 
aleph ("not") but the kri is "lo" with a vav ("to  him") Rashi says, "Kan ramaz 
lecha hakasuv shemitzva beyiud."  
 
"Here the text hints that it is a mitzva to  perform yiud."  
 
 OR in the Silbermann translation:
 
"Scripture hereby implicitly tells you that it is his  duty to designate 
her for himself..."  
 
Since he is translating "mitzva" as duty I took that to  mean the master is 
obligated.  But I see now that "mitzva" in  context can mean "something 
nice to do, something a mensh would do, something  he'll get schar for if he 
does it" rather than something that is  obligatory.
 
The question that started this thread now remains  unanswered.  That was R' 
Akiva Miller's post:
 
>>  I have heard it said  (usually in the context of  military service) 
that the
Torah forbids a woman  to be under the  control of anyone other than her
father or husband.

It  seems  from the beginning of Mishpatim that Amah Ivriya is an exception
to   that rule. Or perhaps it's not an exception, but that the rule  is
actually  "father, husband, or Adon," ..... <<  [--RAM]

So, is there a Torah rule forbidding a woman to be under the  control of 
anyone other than her father or husband?  And if there is such a  rule, is the 
amah ivriah an exception?


--Toby  Katz
t613k at aol.com
..
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