Author Topic: On Slavery  (Read 2367 times)

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Offline Eliezer Ben Avraham

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On Slavery
« on: October 15, 2007, 10:14:34 PM »
First, sorry to disappoint anyone but this post has nothing to do with the black slavery a few hundred years ago.

Our Rabbi's tell us that the greatest praise that Moshe Rabeinu ever received was "Eved Hashed" or the slave of God. How can it be that it is praising to be called "The slave of God"? Did not Hashem take us out of slavery to freedom?
Personally I find the answer to this question by turning the question around. We are all slaves, the only difference is what we are slaves to. Those that are not religious are slaves to themselves. Their body calls for them to eat and they run to appease their belly, whereas the Jew certainly also eats but he has restrictions to follow. The Jew is raised to holiness by being able to control himself and do not what he wants, but what G-d wants. Moshe ultimately did not always as he wanted, but he did as G-d wanted. He may have argued with G-d, but in the end he did what G-d told him to do. When G-d took us out of slavery he did not take us entirely out of slavery, but rather he took us out of slavery to someone other than G-d. Jews are not slaves to others, or even slaves to themselves, rather we must be slaves to G-d and only then may we be "free" of ourselves and others.
KAHANE TZADAK!

Offline Uziyahu

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Re: On Slavery
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2007, 08:55:32 PM »
Personally, if a debtor is not allowed to sell himself INTO slavery in order to get out of debt, I think that "freedom" is actually enforced "slavery" to debt.

If we were truly "free", we would be allowed to sell ourselves into slavery.