[Avodah] For he is his property

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 07:31:03AM -0500, 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.

A baal even has responsibilities toward his beheimos. We make a point
of not eating a meal if our dogs haven't been fed yet. Just in case a
pet dog has the din of a beheimah. (And it was a good teaching moment
when the kids were younger.)

Which gives you an idea how far eved kenaani's life would be from the
treatment of enslaved black people in the US.

But it also says that responsibility doesn't mean we are bestowing
humanity on the eved. Or that we are denying it. Just that responsibility
isn't correlated to the question of personhood.

...
> I understand from various meforshim that these pesukim are talking
> specifically about an eved canaani, and the situation is such that the baal
> assaulted his eved specifically for purposes of discipline. In such cases,
> the pesukim teach us that if the eved dies more than 24 hours after the
> assault, then the baal is not held liable, "kee kaspo hoo" - for he is his
> property.

Baalus in indeed about responsibility. And a qinyan is a way we
formalize accepting responbsility -- whether acquiring an item, she'er
kesus ve'ona'ah, or the qinyan sudar used to appoint a shaliach to sell
my chameitz.

But here the word is kaspo. Kesef is silver and consequently money.
It's pretty hard to say it's not property.

OTOH, the language of baalus and qinyan implies that it's not that
someone is responsible for their property, but the responsibility is
logically priori to their ownership. A person can make use of an
object because he is its baal -- responsible for it.

> So I am not really bothered by the Torah saying that the eved canaani is
> "property". Rather, I am bothered by the ramifications of that relationship
> in this specific case, namely, that the baal is authorized to physically
> discipline his eved so severely that if the eved dies a few days later from
> that assault, the baal is not held accountable.

On the other hand, we allow people to take risks for their parnasah.
Maybe "ki kaspo hu" refers to the fact that being a chattle slave is
how he gets his room, board and clothing. Not that the baal has looser
rules because the eved is his property, but because he accepted corporeal
discipline and the associated risks as part of the trade between becoming
someone's kesef and receiving his livelihood.

--

We may need to distinguish between two kinds of eved kanaani as well:

See Hil' Issurei Bi'ah 14:9. The Rambam says an eved is asked whether
he wants the quasi-Jewish status or not. If he says yes, you teach him
the basics of halakhah and bring him to the miqvah.

If not, you give him 12 months. If he still says no, you sell him
to nachriim. Now, during those 12 months, what's the status of /
responsibilities to that eved? It must be lower than a usual eved
kenaani, no?

But there is a third possibility -- that not being mal and tovel was
a condition set up when the eved was acquired. In an era with yovel
de'oraisa, he can remain your slave. So now you have someone who can
remain an eved, who isn't a quasi-Jew.

--

> And yet, it seems to me that this eved *IS* in some way of a lower degree
> of humanity than an ordinary free man....

Addressed above, when I tried to split the topics of X's reposibilities to
Y and Y's humanity.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
http://www.aishdas.org/asp    'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
Author: Widen Your Tent       'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                   - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l