“Piercing”  Parashat Mishpatim 5785

The Portion of Mishpatim is a treasure trove of Jewish Law given immediately after the Revelation at Sinai. It contains directives (halachot) of nearly every kind – between man and G-d, between man and his fellow man, holidays, witches and a whole lot of tort law. Rivers of ink have been spilled exploring the connections between any two consecutive laws. In this essay, we will zoom into the first law and try to understand why it comes before all the others.

The first law in the portion pertains to the Jewish Slave (Eved Ivri), a person who has sold himself into slavery either because of destitution or because he has stolen an object that he cannot afford to repay. The laws of the Jewish slave are concisely laid out over five verses [Shemot 21:2-6]: “Should you buy a Jewish slave, he shall work for you for six years, and in the seventh year, he shall go free… If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall leave alone. But if the slave says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go free!’… his master shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.” The Talmud in Tractate Kiddushin [15a] makes some clarifications regarding the word “forever”. In this instance, “forever” does not mean forever. This is to say, the slave does not remain in servitude until the end of time. Whether he likes it or not, he automatically goes free on the Jubilee Year (Yovel), which occurs once every fifty years. This does not, however, imply that the slave must serve an entire period of fifty years, but that he must serve until the Jubilee Year, no matter how near or far away it might be. He could serve as little as a day or as much as fifty years.

Another question dealt with in the Talmud is a philosophical one: Why is the slave punished by having specifically his ear(lobe) pierced and not some other body part? Why not pierce his nose or his eyebrow? And if his ear is pierced as some kind of Mark of Cain, would it not serve the same purpose if he was forced to wear an indicative piece of clothing or jewellery, say, an iron bracelet around his neck? There is no shortage of men who wear earrings, such that a slave with pierced ears would not stand out in a crowd. The Talmud in Tractate Kiddushin [22b] answers that G-d, in effect, said “The door and the doorpost that were eye-witnesses in Egypt when I passed over the lintel and the two doorposts, freeing Israel from slavery, and when I said, [Vayikra 25:55] ‘To Me the Children of Israel are servants’ – they are servants to Me and only Me, not servants of other human beings – and yet this person voluntarily procured another master for himself, let his ear be pieced in their presence”. While admittedly spiritually satisfying, this explanation is halachically complex. If the Jewish slave has his ear pierced because he willingly took upon himself a human master, why is his ear not pierced when he first becomes a slave? This question is asked by a number of medieval commentors[1] and most of them answer along the same lines: The reason his ear is not pierced when he first becomes a slave is that the initial period of servitude is not voluntary. It is due to circumstances beyond his control. The piercing of the ear signifies a conscious and willing choice to remain in servitude beyond the required period, symbolizing a deeper commitment and loyalty to the master.

Let us take a closer look at the order of the words spoken by the Jewish Slave who wants to remain with his master beyond the mandatory seven years: “I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go free!” While a person surely loves his wife and he might even love his dog, he would never say, “I love my wife and I also love my dog”. He would not compare his love for his wife to his love for his dachshund unless he was enamoured with sleeping on the couch. And yet, here the slave expresses his love for his master before his love for his own family. One might counter that as his wife is a Canaanite who was given to him purely for purposes of breeding children, who would also become Canaanite slaves one day in the not-so-distant future, perhaps our slave would not develop deep relationships with them. Maybe so, but when you live with a woman and children you have fathered for seven years, you kind of get close. Rabbi Umberto Cassuto[2] suggests reinterpreting the verse as follows: “I love my master, my wife, and my children” as “[If his master has not given him a wife] I love my master [and if his master has given him a wife] my wife [and if she has born him children] and my children”. Respectfully, I find this answer less than satisfying and assert that the wording still remains problematic.

How can all of the above shed light on the choice of the Jewish Slave as the first commandment in the portion? Our answer lies in the Midrash Tanchuma [Devarim 4:1] in the beginning of the Portion of Va’etchanan. The Midrash teaches that when the slave says “master”, he is referring to G-d. When he says “wife”, he is referring to the Torah. And when he says “children”, he is referring to the Jewish People. Let’s take a closer look at this Master-equals-G-d metaphor.

1. The slave says, “I love my master (adoni)”. A directive to love one’s master is clearly stated in a famous verse in the Torah [Devarim 5:6] in a way that is eerily similar: “You shall love G-d (A-don-ai), your Master, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your wealth”. It seems almost sacrilegious to voice one’s love for a taskmaster in the same way one voices his ultimate love for his ultimate Master – his Creator.
2. The Torah [Devarim 11:1] describes the kind of love a person must have for G-d: “Love, therefore, your G-d (A-don-ai) and always keep his charge, his laws, his rules, and his commandments.” Loving G-d means obeying G-d. Reflecting this back to the Jewish slave, is he really professing a desire to obey his master or does he just want to retain his cushy lifestyle? Is he really willing to give up freedom in order to obey a human being who has purchased him for $1.99?

The commentary of Shadal[3] compares the piercing of the ear of the Jewish slave to the religious practice of contemporary Indians and Persians to pierce the ears of their young children, to sanctify them for the purpose of serving their pagan gods. Shadal suggests that perhaps the piercing of the slave’s ear was in order to distance Jews from this idolatrous custom. Looking at Shadal’s explanation on a spiritual level, rather than on a factual level, we can see that the Torah is comparing slavery with idolatry. The pierced Jewish slave has not merely taken upon himself a master in addition to G-d. He is guilty of a far more nefarious crime. We can better understand this idea if we better understand the concept of idolatry. In an earlier essay[4], we quoted the opinion of Nechama Leibowitz[5] who says that in order to be guilty of idolatry, a person does not need to prostrate himself in front of a statue. Idolatry is a dogmatic belief or passion for anything other than G-d. A person may be enthusiastic about something, but if his enthusiasm becomes the end-all and be-all of his world, then he is guilty of idolatry. Sacrificing one’s freedom of one’s own volition is not merely taking on an additional master, it is taking on a surrogate master.

The first commandment in the Ten Commandments is to accept G-d as the one true Master. Without this first step, the rest of the Torah is irrelevant. For the same reason, the laws of Jewish slave are the first laws given after Sinai. Accepting G-d is more than just saying Shema Yisrael. We must willingly obey G-d, our one and only Master, in every single thing we do.

Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5785

Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devorah bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, and Meir ben Drora.

[1] See the commentaries of the Chizkuni and the Rosh on the Torah. This question is discussed fully in this link: https://daf-yomi.com/DYItemDetails.aspx?itemId=33126

[2] Rabbi Cassuto lived in Florence, Italy, in the first half of the previous century.

[3] Rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto, known by his acronym, “Shadal”, lived in Italy in the 18^th century.

[4] Noach 5761

[5] Nechama Leibowitz lived in Berlin and in Israel in the previous century. She forever changed the way in which Tanach is learnt.