[af_vet_1981]

The portion of Mishpatim that intrigues me is the law of the servant whose master gave him a woman (if he went into servitude/slavery with a wife, she goes free with him). After six years he goes free yet must leave this wife and any children as property of the master. These were human beings, not sheep or cattle. The servant could become a servant for life, by choosing it and having a hole punched in his ear. Otherwise, if he goes free, his wife and children remain slaves.

On the surface, this looks like a breeding program to produce slaves.

[Read Write Repeat]

I didn’t initially read it as slavery. I thought it more like a bondsman/servant/underling worker and the employer paid for the wedding, the house, the education of the offspring, etc.

Your employer gives you all these gifts/signing bonus and you take off the day after the wedding/first day of hire seems like rude behavior and abandoning a contract.

I need more study on that!

[Yaelle]

It is very uncomfortable to see how comfortable Jews at that time were with slavery. But it is necessary to study it and be glad we didn’t live then, or in early America when other Jews were comfortable with slavery.

I have read many hundreds of American ex slave narratives. I have come across some where the elderly person recounts things from his childhood and youth as a slave, such as: everyone had a day off on Saturday and was given extra food on that day, and how they were encouraged to worship in their way and some even learning to read. I knew damn well they had Jewish masters. Fascinating.