[Avodah] For he is his property

[Zev Sero]

On 28/1/22 07:31, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> We often try to avoid translating "eved" as "slave". We often prefer 
> terms like "servant" or "long-term employee", because "slave" tends to 
> objectify a person, it removes his humanity. We point out the many 
> obligations that the baal has towards his eved, and how the Torah 
> stresses the care that the baal must put into this relationship.

I don't know who is this "we" who avoids translating the word correctly. 
  An eved kena'ani *is* a slave.  And as far as I know his owner has no 
obligations to him whatsoever, not even the obligation to feed him after 
having put in a hard day's work picking his cotton. Of course he is not 
entitled to murder him, as for instance Roman law allowed, but Southern 
USA slave-owners were not entitled to murder their slaves either, and in 
principle they could be hanged for it, though I doubt it ever happened 
in practice.

RSRH is merely saying that slavery doesn't make someone less human; most 
slave-owning societies agreed with that, including the Southern USA, and 
even Rome.  The only society I'm aware of that actually thought of 
slaves as less than human is the Vikings; I'm not sure how they 
explained it, but somehow upon becoming enslaved a person was thought to 
lose whatever it is that makes humans human.


-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone health, wealth, and
zev at sero.name       happiness in 2022