Jewish Slaves: Parashat Mishpatim

0:04Now, the guy that has a family, he gets the promotion or demotion. He's the producer of slaves. How do I explain that one? Simple. We're not expecting him to sign up for this sin. And since he's the property of the master, the master has the right to use him for what he needs, even if that means using his seed. What about the fact that it's forbidden for a Jew to be with a non-Jew? You're right, that's so long as the Jew is free, but once he is a slave, he no longer has the same rights, the same freedom, and he's only obligated to do the mitzvot like a woman. Therefore, this issue is not an issue for him; it's not a sin for him. But when does this become problematic? When this Reuven When this, Reuven, falls in love with the Canaanite, he decides, "Listen, I know it's time for me to leave, but Martha over here and I, from the Messianic Jewish congregation, we like each other. We love each other. We have...

1:3267 babies together. So I don't want to leave. Well, listen, you have to leave. Your term has ended. No, no, no, but I'm only going to leave if you let me go with her. And my kids, they're not your kids. They're the property of the master. Well, this is not fair. Well, if you want to stay, you'll be a servant for life. You'll be a servant for life. And he decides that Martha and her little puppies are worth it. What's the process, the procedure then? They take him to the door, put his ear against the doorpost — some say the door itself, it could be either one — and they make a hole in his ear. You know, like some of these... People of this generation do. Not the ones from Africa, where this has been their tradition for however many hundreds of years; they're still in a third-world country. I'm talking about the people from here, from America, from modern society, where they decide one day to just cut off part of their ear. Not to make an earring or beautify themselves, but literally, it's a thing to uglify yourself, to make yourself more strange.

3:00make huge holes in their ears like, for whatever reason or another, somehow this part of their ear bothers them so much they want to make a hole so you can see through it. Maybe they're going to hang their earphones on it instead of listening to earphones—I'm not really sure what the whole purpose of it is. But people do this, and they make bigger holes and bigger holes. You know, in my generation, if you got a tattoo, you were the cool kid. You got sleeves? Wow, this guy is a rebel. Today, people are tattooing their faces. A guy shows up to an interview, and you're not even sure what color he is, what his background is, or what he even looks like. All you're seeing are all types of drawings on his eyes and on his face, literally, people walking around like this. Unbelievable. Surely, there have always been strange people in the past here and there. Today, it's standard. People are literally putting tattoos on their eyelids. I'm not sure what happened, but nonetheless, this is what's happening. They're not new to this idea; these types of things existed in the world of idolatry in the past, and the Jewish slave...

4:21Got himself a stylish hole in his head, hole in his ear. It was an extremely painful process. Why? Because he wants to stay. He wants to remain married to Martha and the 57 pugs, instead of going back to be a Jew with his Jewish wife and his kids. No, no, no. He wants to be with the Cana'anim. Yeah, but your wife, what about her? Okay, I'll keep the Jewish wife also, but we're going to stay permanently under this slavery. Now, the question is, what's with the hole? What's with the hole? Just like we had an answer for the first, the Torah has an answer for the second. The young man... the thought of himself as an opportunity that he's going to take because he couldn't find a wife; his dreams were squashed because he's not allowed to have that position. The other man who was married forgot what his position is, forgetting that this is the way of the world, especially at the time where...

5:46Slavery was a common practice, and in fact, throughout all of history, one of my dear talmidim told me the other day, we never heard of a rebellion by people that were slaves. With the Jews, even though this was obviously many years ago, the point is you don't see any rebellion. Why? Because they were treated really well. You weren't allowed to abuse them, rape them, or do any of the things that people do today, even to their employees. So when the slave got carried away and wanted to stay a slave, they made a hole in his ear. Not only to show him he's making a mistake, but to also highlight that he's making a mistake he should have realized. Because last week, we heard at Mount Sinai one of the Ten Commandments: "Do not steal." You stole and therefore you became a slave. You had six years to think about that and do teshuva. Instead of doing teshuva, what did you do? You became a bigger criminal. Instead of going back and being excited to go back to serving Hashem, better than what you did before, what do you want to do? You want to serve man. For what? For the sake of some girl. We are meant to be a light unto the nations.

7:07unto the nations, not to follow their misguided practices. Remember, every Jew has to remember that he's a Jew and she's a Jew. We don't celebrate non-Jewish holidays, even if they seem harmless. It's a zilzul, a disrespect to the Torah.