פרשת ראה תש"ט - עבד עברי

If thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, he shall serve thee six years; and in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

If thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, he shall serve thee six years; and in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

And afterward Moses and Aaron came, and said unto Pharaoh: ‘Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.’

And he said unto them: ‘I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who hath made the sea and the dry land.’

that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, go free; that none should make bondmen of them, even of a Jew his brother;

before giving to your poor (i.e., the poor in your family); and the needy of your land have precedence over the needy of another land. The common theme which connects this passage with the passage If your Hebrew brother be sold to you is the idea of “supply him with a bonus” [: 14].

supply with a bonus [Hebrew: haneyq taniq] You must behave beautifully toward him, from “a necklace [Hebrew: ɒ naqim] about your neck” [Proverbs 1: 9]. Or, it could be that the word has no cognate, and that its meaning must be deduced entirely from context.

And it shall be, if he say unto thee: ‘I will not go out from thee’; because he loveth thee and thy house, because he fareth well with thee;

The Sages taught: The verse states concerning a Hebrew slave: “Because he fares well with you,” which teaches that the slave should be with you, i.e., treated as your equal, in food, meaning that his food must be of the same quality as yours, and with you in drink. This means that there shall not be a situation in which you eat fine bread and he eats inferior bread, bread from coarse flour mixed with bran, which is low quality. There shall not be a situation in which you drink aged wine and he drinks inferior new wine. There shall not be a situation in which you sleep comfortably on bedding made from soft sheets and he sleeps on straw. From here the Sages stated: Anyone who acquires a Hebrew slave is considered like one who acquires a master for himself, because he must be careful that the slave’s living conditions are equal to his own.

then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear and into the door, and he shall be thy bondman for ever. And also unto thy bondwoman thou shalt do likewise.

So shall you do even to your maid-servant refers back to “supply him with a bonus” [: 14] (even though it is remote — compare the antecedents of “He must make restitution; if he has nothing wherewith to pay…” [Exodus 22: 2], “if these three…” [Exodus 21: 11], and many others [see also comment on Leviticus 19: 25]), because a woman’s ear is not pierced [Qiddushin 17b].

It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou lettest him go free from thee; for to the double of the hire of a hireling hath he served thee six years; and the LORD thy God will bless thee in all that thou doest.

לא יקשה בעיניך, when you dismiss her from your service having given him money, etc. משנה, double שכר שכיר, the wages paid to a hired hand, (the Torah knows that you paid him 6 years’ wages in advance, and with what you are giving when he leaves he has in effect received twice what a hired hand would have received.) In recognition of how you have treated him, G’d will bless you in all your undertakings. The meaning of this paragraph is similar to the admonition of the Torah in verse 10 and the use of the term רע בעיניך occurs also in such a sense in Deut. 28,56 when the reaction of even a mother and wife to the pressures of famine are described. רועת עין, describes envy and jealousy in matters financial. The same is true of the expression קשיות הלב, being hard-hearted. Both expressions refer to the feelings of a person when he has to give of his money to others who he does not feel have a claim on his money, on his generosity. Those commentators who understand our verse as speaking of the employer feeling put out at having to release their worker and the Torah telling the employer that he had no cause for the worker had worked diligently for six years are in error. The master knew in advance that after six years the contract was complete and the worker would be free to go. What possible reason could the employer have of being jealous of that arrangement?
Furthermore, the Torah should not have written משנה שכר שכיר, but merely משנה שכיר. Some commentators take the view that the words משנה שכיר refer to the six years, seeing that the average period for which a labourer was hired used to be 3 years, so that the word משנה would refer to the fact that this labourer worked for twice that period. The idea that the standard period was three years is reflected in Isaiah 16,14 This is also senseless, seeing that in Isaiah 21,16 we are told that the average period of hire was precisely a year, no longer. It follows that the words כשני שכיר (as the years of a hired hand) mean precisely 3 years just as when he is hired for a year it means precisely a year.