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Beit Midrash
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The Torah itself seems to limit if not even prevent the practice of slavery among the Jews. The laws that proscribe the keeping of slaves lead to the conclusion that one who owns a slave really owns a master over one’s self. These laws also prevent any violence to be done to the slave so that any form of slavery among Jews certainly was benighted and uplifted in comparison with the usual forms of slavery that existed in the ancient world and that remain in our world even today. Even so, the matter does not rest easily for us for the concept of slavery itself remains somewhat repugnant to our sensibilities and society. I have no magic bullet solution to this difficulty. My faith is not shaken by it and I can remain puzzled and yet a believer. Maybe that is one of the lessons that the Torah wishes to impose upon us. There are situations and laws that will appear strange to the human mind and difficult to justify and deal with. We will have to admit that our thoughts are not those of God and that the finite can never understand and appreciate the ways of the infinite. The Torah does not justify slavery and it does not ban it either. It tells us that there are laws that govern such a situation. But essentially it leaves the matter up to human society to deal with it. And so it remains throughout all of human history.
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Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part II
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part II
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
Parashat Hashavua Happiness for the Right Reasons
[With painful longing, we share these divrei Torah from our co-Rosh Kollel for close to 40 years, Harav Moshe Ehrenreich zt”l.]
