Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Shmot
- Mishpatim
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.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Various Events FOR WHOM NOT TO VOTE
Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook stressed that Israeli politics is G-dly, so I have no problem answering this common question on a Torani blog. Also, Free-Will is a G-d-given right and obligation, to "destine one's fate" (R. Soloveichik, Kol Dodi Dofek, 67), so I obviously don't tell others how to vote. But once not a few (especially young) have already asked, a couple of personal words from experience and thoughts from chazal & Rav Kook which may be of help to others, mainly for whom NOT to vote.
P'ninat Mishpat Fallout from Failure to Install Elevator – part II
based on ruling 85007 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts
