Slavery is fucked up. And it’s in the torah, in a big way. Hell, it’s a model for how God apparently owns us. So the following are some Jewish apologetics for slavery - and my comments. Firstly, a reply to Rishonan’s post, and then a reply to an article from Chabad.org titled “Torah, Slavery, and the Jews.” {And as with most of my posts, emphasis in quotes is typically my own addition.} Cheers

rishonan:

It’s very interesting when you witness people picking out pieces of the Torah that are ”wrong” because they don’t mesh with modern sensibilities. What these same people fail to realize is that their “modern sensibilities” are really rooted in self-righteousness — in that they are comfortable with how they live their life, and they feel that their own moral code trumps that of ancient people (or even the Creator, G-d forbid).

Are you telling me that you don’t judge the practices of other cultures, particularly primitive ones? How would you feel about, say, child sacrifices? Against them, you say? Oh, how self-righteous.

As for judging god. Fuck yeah we’re gonna judge him. I refer you to my recent post here.

Two of the issues that the Torah sanctions that people adamantly protest are polygamy and slavery. I’ll dedicate this post to the latter. Nowadays, when you hear the word slavery, your mind automatically conjures up images of Kunte Kinte in Roots, fighting for his freedom from various oppressive White masters. Well this form of slavery, which was a horrific institution that million of Africans and their descendants had to endure in the New World, was a far cry than what the Torah sanctioned. First of all, the situation of slavery at that point in time was one that a thief or a debtor found themselves in when they couldn’t repay a debt. It could also apply to captives of war and conquest.

To quote punk-to-funk from the comments: “it is plain that millions of (African) slaves could be described as ‘captives of conquest.’” Or pretty much anyone, I’ll add {and more on that later}.



Most importantly, the status of “slave” was not a lifelong designation. The slave’s spouse and children weren’t automatically deemed slaves as well. You couldn’t be born into slavery.

Actually, that’s only true of Jewish slaves. Gentile slaves and their children are owned permanently. See Leviticus 25:39-46 {x}, and Rashi on Exodus 21:2-4 {x}{Encyclopedia Judaica} Oh, and why aren’t jewish slaves permanently owned? “For they are My servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as bondmen” - Lev.25:42. {And, in actual practice, even jewish slaves were kept - more on that soon.}

Also there were many conditions where a slave could be freed from there obligation. Slave owners could be executed if he murdered his slave. Exodus 21:20-21 states: If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod, and the slave dies under his hand, the death must be avenged [the master is punished by death]. However, if the slave survives for a day or two, his death shall not be avenged, since he is his master’s property.

So, it’s ok to beat the hell out of your slave as long as he only dies a few days later? After all “he is his master’s property.” Seriously, WTF?! Think about that. If someone beats you and you die a few days later, it’s ok, bc he owns you! Let that sink in for a minute or two.

Slavery was utilized by both Jews and non-Jews at that time. However the slaves of Jews were required to rest on the Sabbath; just like the animals and employees of Jews must do.

To quote punk-to-funk again: “Jewish slavery is ok because slaves get a day off for shabbos? Wow.”

And glad jews, slaves, and animals get equal treatment on this one. Really reinforces that sense of humanity. And I like that the fact that it was common amongst non-jews at the time somehow makes it OK. And yet…



The Torah addresses slavery, just like it addresses other aspects of life…such as marriage, eating, agriculture and business practices…simply as divine reminders of how Jews should conduct themselves in contrast to their neighbors. The Torah stresses that slaves are to be treated justly…with dignity and respect…and their role is to work to repay their debt — not to be physically and emotionally abused by their owners.

And yet, despite the jewish pride in distinguishing themselves from the gentiles, they manage to excuse horrific behavior and ideas bc “well, everyone was doing it!”

And thanks for the link to the Chabad.org article. I’ll be getting to that shortly.

So in this context, there is nothing that is “so wrong” about slavery as described by the Torah.

Someone owns you. That is wrong. Let me say it again: It is wrong for someone to own you. {And it’s all the worse when sanctioned from ludicrous and ancient superstitions.}

What is wrong is to be so presumptuous as to equate that form of slavery with the monstrosity that occured on these shores as the same thing.

No, what is wrong is to assume that such monstrous treatment didn’t occur to slaves at the time. Honestly, you keep reading apologetics talking about how it’s a beautiful system where someone works and learns to love his slave-master’s family blah blah. Reality check: Stanford Prison Experiment. When people have power over others - especially when they fucking own them! - it is typically abused.

And to quote the essay, “Religions and the abolition of slavery - a comparative approach” by William G. Clarence-Smith {x}:

Jeremiah, 34:8-22 {x}, identified disobedience in releasing Hebrew slaves in the seventh year as causing the wrath of God to fall upon his people. Joel, 4:6 {x}, fulminated against the sale of Jewish slaves to Greeks, while Amos, 1:6 and 1:9-10 {x}, condemned the sale of ‘whole communities of captives.’

Again, I can only imagine how the other rules were “bent”.

==

Chabad article: Torah, Slavery, and the Jews, by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman {x}

Btw, I tried to trim down the article a bit, particularly all the meaningless blather {and there’s a lot}, so if you want all the insanity, click the link to check it out in full:

…Your question is one of those bedrock questions: After all, isn’t slavery the antithesis of Torah?…

Antithesis? Don’t you mean “basis”?! Just look at the jewish story: We were slaves, then god made us his slaves, and all that jazz. That’s why he can command us to do anything, or do horrible stuff to us like what he did to Job.

Torah is about liberty, human dignity and respect for our fellow citizens of this planet for which the Creator cares so much…

Yeah, so we’ve already seen that the laws for slaves differ for jews and gentiles, but more importantly, if the torah is all about “liberty & human dignity” then how about just not having fucking slaves! How about a law to help people in need, even if it means hiring them to work. “No, no, no - we need slaves!” And jewish slaves, who would normally go free eventually, if they don’t want to - for instance, bc they’re still dirt poor - then we have to run a hole through their ear against a doorpost! {Exodus 21:6 - x} Because the torah cares so much about human dignity! {And what’s with bodily mutilation as a sign of servitude? First circumcision, now this.}

Let me point out another powerful weapon of social upheaval that the Torah espouses, especially through the medium of King David’s collection of psalms: The Divine CEO open-door policy. A.k.a. “personal prayer”: Any individual, indeed, any living creature, can at any moment, for any complaint, cry out to the Master of the Universe and his/her/its petition will be heard and acted upon. Guaranteed. “This poor man cries out and G-d listens.” You may not have thought about this, but those may just be the most radical, subversive and revolutionary words in history. Whereas the kings and priests of old would have their subjects believe that life is a grand chain of command with yours truly on top and you scum on the bottom, this idea of personal prayer flattened all hierarchies: Everyone is equally close to the top of the ladder.

Umm. Yay?

So it’s ok to have slaves bc they get to rest on saturday and bc any of them can pray whenever they want - and be guaranteed that it won’t work. {Afterall, I’m pretty sure most people would have prayed not to become slaves. Just a guess.} And yeah, judaism may have included some novel and somewhat progressive ideas for the time, but that doesn’t dismiss all the horrible aspects. And why should we judge god against the standards of a primitive society. That’s setting the bar low for anyone, let alone the omniscient & benevolent creator of the universe.

[And btw, I’m not certain that Judaism taught - or still does - that “everyone is equally close to the top of the ladder.” I think it teaches that everyone is able to pray to god but some people - like kings, priests, and tzadikim {the righteous} - are a bit closer.]

Okay, they’re not really slaves. Slaves are people owned by other people. In Torah law, you never have complete ownership over anything. These slaves rest on the seventh day and Jewish holidays, cannot be physically or sexually abused and are obligated in many mitzvot. So they are really more like indentured servants…

Ohhh! They’re indentured servants! That makes it all ok! pfft. And maybe he’s talking about Jewish slaves, but as I pointed out, non-jewish slaves are definitely owned, and as I pointed out, in practice, even Jewish slaves were held permanently. As for not abusing them. Perhaps the law forbids it {we’ll get to that again soon}, but I’m sure as fuck that it happened, just like it does even today, 2,000 years later, with people in prisons and even religious leaders who are pedophiles. Let alone back then when society would care so much less what you did to them. Which brings us to…

[Maimonides’ writings on slaves:] It is permissible to work a non-Jewish servant harshly. Yet, although this is the law, the way of the pious and the wise is to be compassionate and to pursue justice, not to overburden or oppress a servant, and to provide them from every dish and every drink… For anger and cruelty are only found among other nations. The children of Abraham, our father–and they are Israel, to whom the Holy One, blessed be He, has provided the goodness of Torah and commanded us righteous judgments and statutes–they are compassionate to all… - (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Indentured Servants, 9:8)

Ok, so, firstly, “It is permissible to work a non-Jewish servant harshly.” That should really end this discussion in itself. But I want to reiterate a point: Even if the torah has rules suggestions for slave-masters to be kind, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Again, power gets abused. Now, that might sound like the fault of the individual slave-owners {though again, they’re not actually breaking any rules!}, but I’d argue that it’s god’s fault for creating a system so ripe for abuse. I mean, surely an omniscient god knows that it’s going to be abused and play a huge role in some of the most wicked and horrific behavior in all of human history?! Allowing slavery would be like letting cops be judge, jury, and executioner. A really bad system. And I’d blame the one who set it up more than the individuals whose infractions caused them, undoubtedly, much hurt.

And just to give some historical perspective, Maimonides wrote that around 1,000 years ago, which is around 1,000 years after Jesus and the second temple, and around 1,300-1800 years after Judaism began {depending on your view}. It seems entirely likely to me that Maimonides lived during a more civilized time, relatively speaking {again, around 1,000-2,000 years later!}, and that the jewish perspective and culture was much less kind in earlier times - just as it’s more kind now, 1,000 years after Maimonides. And as the article hints, Maimonides was somewhat controversial for his time, being a rationalist and somewhat liberal. {“Sure, [Maimonides] hit up against lots of controversy for a few hundred years. But eventually he was accepted as the foremost authority since the close of the Babylonian Talmud.”} {Oh, again, that’s how religions evolve.} And to give some more perspective: Maimonides says that it’s ok to beat your wife. {x} Now, I know that women were basically slaves or animals to be bought and sold for most of history - including, if not especially, jewish history - but if you can beat your own wife, fuck, I can only imagine what you can do to a slave that you own!

Reading superficially, you might imagine that Maimonides is presenting us with little more than apologetics. He seems to be saying, “The Torah says we can be real mean, but that’s not nice, so we don’t do that.”… Here you have the Torah telling you to be kind and compassionate towards all G-d’s creatures… And then the same Torah says, “But you’re allowed to be nasty to your slaves”!.. So how can that same Torah that makes us kind permit oppressive labor of a fellow Divine Image? How about a little consistency over here? Why can’t the Torah start outright with the laws of servants, “If you have people working for you, you must treat them as equals. You must talk to them in a pleasant voice, listen to their complaints, feed them the same food you eat, provide employee benefits, regular vacations.. If you [slave-master] don’t like it, do the work yourself.” Why not? Because that would undermine the purpose of Torah. Of course. That’s why god couldn’t even write out simple laws for ethical treatment of slaves, let alone telling us that owning people is thoroughly immoral and ripe for the worst abuse imaginable. . That’s why Torah had to be given–we couldn’t just figure it out on our own. Because to effect real change it must come from “outside the system.” And yet we managed to figure out that slavery is wrong all on our own - and despite the torah’s support for it.

But Torah is a voice heard from beyond–and so it may have two faces at once.

I leave this metaphysical nonsense for your amusement. Take an agrarian society surrounded by hostile nations. Go in there and forcefully abolish slavery. The result? War, bloodshed, hatred, prejudice, poverty and eventually, a return to slavery until the underlying conditions change. Which is pretty much what happened in the American South… Not a good idea. Better idea: Place humane restrictions upon the institution of indentured servitude. Yes, it’s still ugly, but in the meantime, you’ll teach people compassion and kindness. Educate. Make workshops. Go white-water rafting together. (Hey, why didn’t Abe Lincoln think of white-water rafting?) Eventually, things change and slavery becomes an anachronism for such a society… So the “conservative-radical” approach of Torah is this: Work with the status quo to get beyond it. Torah is more about process than about content. So, moving past the idiotic rafting joke, what he’s suggesting is that god wanted to end slavery but it would have been too difficult {for god!}, so he instead taught us to be kind knowing that we’d eventually realize his other laws aren’t kind and so should be overridden. uh-huh. That’s honestly one of the weakest and most desperate arguments I’ve ever heard. God couldn’t command the jews to do this? They all just left bondage in egypt! Hell, he commanded them to cut off a part of their genitals! But he just can’t get them to do this? WTF? Seriously? Oh, and it was his plan for this to stop all along. Right. You can pretty much use that excuse for any biblical idea which we now recognize as abhorrent. “Women as chattel? Oh no, that’s just for now. Eventually they’ll learn to give them rights. Uh-huh, that’s the plan.” “Commit genocide against amalek?! No, what are you talking about! That was just for then. Now it just means to politely disagree with them!” Are you satisfied with this answer? I’m not. I’m convinced there’s a deeper effect that Torah is looking for. Call it “the participatory effect.” A.k.a. nurture. The Participatory Effect tells us that if you want people to follow rules, you put guns to their heads. But if you want them to learn, grow, internalize those rules and be able to teach them to others, you’re going to have to involve them in the process of forming those rules… In Torah, both the masculine and the feminine approaches exist–they’re called “The Written Torah” and “The Oral Torah.”… Of course, that doesn’t mean we can make up whatever sounds nice to us and call it Torah. There are rigorous guidelines and a firm set of criteria for a novel idea to be considered Torah… When you are working through a Torah idea, those ideas within your brain and those words that you are speaking are no different than the words of the written Torah themselves. As those Talmudic sages put it, “Any new idea a qualified Torah student comes up with was already given to Moses at Sinai.” The idea is new, but it’s still Torah. It’s new, because until now it was hidden deep within the folds and creases of the package Moses delivered. It’s Torah, because all the qualified student did was unfold the package and smooth out the creases. Sounds like a set-up to take any modern ethical sentiment and say, “oh, y'know what, that was in the torah all along!” Quite similar to what many religious folk do with science in the torah. And I love how he tries to paint this picture of torah as a philosophical democracy where ideas are exchanged and people grow etc. So far from reality. Firstly, only the greatest jewish leaders are allowed any say on jewish law. So that immediately dismisses 99% of the jewry. And even then, rabbis can have only the slightest of influences {since judaism is a religion which, by its nature, evolves slowly} as they work within a rather rigid framework. Oh, and I’m still not satisfied with the {attempted} answers. So you can see where I’m getting to with the slavery thing. If G-d would simply and explicitly declare all the rules, precisely as He wants His world to look and what we need to do about it, the Torah would never become real to us. No matter how much we would do and how good we would be, we would remain aliens to the process. So Torah involves us in arriving at that attitude. To the point that we will say, “Even though the Torah lets us, we don’t do things that way.” Which means that we’ve really learnt something. And now, we can teach it to others. Because those things you’re just told, those you cannot teach. You can only teach that which you have discovered on your own… Firstly, wtf does it mean that you can only teach things you’ve discovered on your own? Seriously, wtf does that mean? And why the fuck would it matter if jews had no problem teaching that slavery was fine for thousands of years. Secondly, but what about all the time before the jewish community accepts {if ever!} the modern sensibilities? WTF? Thirdly, importantly, and surprisingly, it seems that Rabbi Freeman is agreeing with atheists that one can derive ethics without the bible. Case in point: Torah says slavery is ok; we realize that it’s not. We can overcome humanity’s ancient ideas of morality. So why would anyone need or want a bible that teaches us at least some horrible ideas?! The history of emancipation is complex and long–and viciously controversial. In truth, Jews took roles on both sides of the prickly fence… In the struggle, eventually the true Jewish spirit prevailed and it is those values that Maimonides espouses that eventually became dominant in our society. Rabbis {like L. Kelemen} often talk about how jews were involved in civil rights movements - but what they seem to overlook is that it was usually the irreligious and non-orthodox jews, those who reject the torah and traditional beliefs, who helped those causes, helped advance humanity, and after which orthodoxy eventually - often begrudgingly - came to accept and then praise. And that often it’s the religious folk who hold back progress, much like today with orthodoxy’s stance against lgbt rights. {x, particularly this, x,} The “true” jewish spirit is the backwards ideas we’re moving away from. Slavery included. And it’s my personal hope that Jews will recognize the hypocrisy and, frankly, evil in much of Judaism and soon free themselves from the shackles of “indentured servitude” to an allegedly real, omniscient, and benevolent god. “The Morality of a System is Better Judged by the Criticism of the Disaffected than by the Praise of the Satisfied.”

~ Additional reading: Jews involved in slave trade since middle-ages { Additional reading: Jews involved in slave trade since middle-ages { Encyclopedia Judaica wiki } Judaism and Slavery { wiki

(via rishonan)