Behar 5784

By Simon Rouse

In the spirit of an academic writing a thesis I must give credit to Sefaria in helping me research this.

We now have a general election on the 4^th July, but of course that date is more famous for being the anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776.

However on this day, 11 years later (25th May 1787) 1787 (237 years ago) delegates met in Philadelphia to create the U.S Constitution. Although alluded to in a number of its provision, the word slave was not present in the document

It is generally agreed that one of the main underlying causes of the U.S. Civil War was slavery and about 6 months after it ended, Slavery was abolished in the U.S when the 13^th amendment was signed in December 1865.We will come to the text of that amendment later,

It is interest that 2 weeks before those delegates got together William Pitt the Younger challenged William Wilberforce to bring forward a motion before Parliament to abolish slavery. Wilberforce managed to get the Slavery Abolition Act passed in August 1833 a week before he died

A really interesting adjunct to this about the Slave Compensation Act passed in 1837. As its name implies this financially compensated slave owners for relinquishing their slaves. The British Government borrowed £15m (equivalent to c £17bn now) to support this act only finished paying off the debt in 2015. Who loaned that money? Nathan Mayer Rothschild and his brother-in-law Moses Montefiore.

Overview

What has this got to do with this week’s sedrah?

Apart from the last two verses, Behar is about ownership. The first 34 verses are about ownership of land and its produce; verses 35 & 36 are about helping others financially; then 39 to 55 is about ownership of slaves with the last 2 verses remind us not to commit idolatry and keep Shabbat.

So in terms of verses, approximately a third of the sedrah is about slavery.

We know there are no wasted words in the Torah so how often are slaves mentioned? It is difficult to search for words in the Torah and my Hebrew certainly is up to doing that. I did find an online English text version and found that the word slave appeared 45 times. That is an underestimate because words like manservant act as synonyms. But let’s compare it to the number of times other words appear

And you can see that 45 is quite a significant number.

Two of those are in the 10 commandments:

4th Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11)

… the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord Your God, in it you shall not do any manner of work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant,

10th Commandment

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, nor his wife, his man-servant, his maid-servant…….

Then there is the whole story of Joseph as a slave followed later by Jewish slavery in Egypt.

Laws relating to slaves are also discussed in Mishpatim.

But for me it is this sedra that really brings slavery into perspective. Like the U.S. Constitution, to my mind there is some coyness about the different sorts of slavery in the Torah.

Behar talks about how you should treat a fellow Jew who has become destitute and works for you as a bondsman or slave. It also says that such slaves should be released in a Jubilee year just like property must be returned to its hereditary owner. And it reminds that we were slaves in Egypt. But then it talks about non-Jewish slaves.

Verses 44-46 are about slaves as we know them. 46 clarifies that they are hereditary property “that shall you shall pass down to your children and you shall thus have them serve your family forever.” These are non-Jews as the verse continues:

וּבְאַ֨חֵיכֶ֤ם בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ אִ֣ישׁ בְּאָחִ֔יו לֹא־תִרְדֶּ֥ה ב֖וֹ בְּפָֽרֶךְ

Va`achaychem Bnei Yisroel, Ish Be-achiv, lo-tirdeh, vo b`pharech.

But your brothers, the children of Israel – a man with his brother, you do not treat him harshly with hard labour.

This of course reminds us of the verse in Shemot that is referred to in the Hagaddah:

וַיְמָרְרוּ אֶת-חַיֵּיהֶם בַּעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה בְּחֹמֶר וּבִלְבֵנִים וּבְכָל-עֲבֹדָה בַּשָּׂדֶה

Vaymareru et-chayeihem ba’avodah kashah b`chomer uvilvaynim uvechol-avodah basadeh

They (the Egyptians) made their lives [of the Benei Yisrael] bitter through harsh labour with mortar and bricks.

So there seems to be a clear distinction between them and us when dealing with slaves.

What about post Biblical times?

The concept of a Jew being a slave to other Jews was stopped in 2nd Temple times – so about 2,000 years ago. Generally where Jews lived in a society which had slavery, Jews, if permitted and could afford it, had slaves. When Jews lived in a society without slavery, Jews had no slaves.

There are numerous comments about slaves in the Talmud – I have picked out a few:

• Mishnah Pesachim (113a)] contains this advice
  • If your daughter has grown up, it is better to free your Canaanite slave and give him to her than to leave her to find a husband on her own
• Mishnah Bava Metzia 86b]:
  • Despite the intense heat, Abraham wanted to invite guests. He sent Eliezer his slave to go outside to see if there were any passersby. Eliezer went out but did not find anyone. Abraham said to him: I do not believe you.

The Gemara comments: This demonstrates the popular adage that people in Eretz Yisrael, say: Slaves do not have any credibility.

• The Bartenura 15^th Century Italian Rabbi(Mishnah Kiddushim)
  • A Canaanite slave should be freed if his Jewish master had severely mutilated him, and given a document of manumission.
• Rabbi Akivah who comes to mind because of Lag B’omer tomorrow, had a very strict view about non-Jewish slaves based on Behar – they should either be converted immediately or sold to a non-Jew.

Jews and Slave Trade

In 1991 Louis Farrakhan published The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews in which he says that Jews owned slave ships and played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade. I haven’t read the book but it doesn’t seem unreasonable that he had read this part of the Bible to create his views. And did he know about the Rothschild and Montefiore involvement? Were Jews involved in the slave trade? Yes, they were definitely not disproportionately.

Deborah Lipstadt called the book the “African American-oriented version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”

I am left perplexed by this difference in attitude between Jew and Non-Jew with respect to slaves. There are three references to God brought us out of Egypt where we were slaves in this sedrah alone.

Mishpatim contains the verse

And you shall not mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt

But Bava Metziah (59b) indicates that this actually refers converts.

Clearly like most things when you start to study, you just scratch the surface and realise that we need to study more and consider the Bard’s advice spoken by Hamlet:

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

But let me end by putting this into context and go back to the U.S Constitution which in terms of the longevity Jewish history was yesterday. And if you didn’t already know – at least 13 US Presidents were slave owners and that includes George Washington & Thomas Jefferson.

Here is the relevant text of the 13^th Amendment signed in December 1865

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Slavery was not abolished in the U.S. by the 13^th Amendment!

And in 2023 there was A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prohibit the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime.

It has been read twice by Senate and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.