Emancipation

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The Path to Emancipation

MISHNAH

The Mishnah outlines the specific legal mechanisms and conditions under which a Hebrew slave and a Hebrew maidservant can be emancipated. This early third-century legal text provides detailed laws on the emancipation of Hebrew slaves, reflecting ancient Jewish societal norms and legal practices.

A Hebrew slave can be acquired by his master through money or through a document, and he can acquire himself, i.e., he is emancipated, through years, i.e., when he completes his six years of labor, or through the advent of the Jubilee Year, or through the deduction of money. The slave can redeem himself during the six years by paying for his remaining years of slavery. A Hebrew maidservant has one mode of emancipation more than him, as she acquires herself through signs indicating puberty…

Mishnah Kiddushin 1:2

Rebuilding Without Permission

COMMENTARY

Early Zionists, disillusioned with European Enlightenment and Emancipation, took proactive steps to rebuild their world without waiting for divine permission. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explores the motivations behind early Zionism, drawing on teachings from Midrash Tanḥuma to illustrate their proactive stance.

That was the faith of the early Zionists. They knew early on, some from the 1860s, others after the pogroms of the 1880s, Herzl after the Dreyfus trial, that European Enlightenment and Emancipation had failed, that despite its immense scientific and political achievements, mainland Europe still had no place for the Jew. Some Zionists were religious, others were secular, but most importantly they all knew what the Midrash Tanḥuma made so clear: When it comes to rebuilding a shattered world or a broken dream, you don’t wait for permission from Heaven. Heaven is telling you to go ahead.

Studies in Spirituality; A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible, Noah; The Courage to Live with Uncertainty 16

Revitalizing Jewish Identity

CHASIDUT

The Jewish Enlightenment led to significant assimilation and loss of Jewish identity in Eastern Europe. Zev Reichman explores how R. Yisrael Baal Shem Tov's Chasidic movement sought to revitalize Jewish spirituality and community life in response.

In the mid-eighteenth century, the Jewish nation in Europe underwent a momentous change. After centuries of discrimination and suffering, sounds of civic, economic, and political emancipation began to resonate in small towns throughout Eastern Europe. Yet this emancipation engendered a debilitating spiritual infection, which struck the Jewish people and fully emerged once the Jews stepped beyond the strictures of the ghetto and took their place among the ranks of European citizenry. Jews began to forsake the traditions of their ancestors and assimilate into Gentile societies…

Flames of Faith, Foreword 6

Divorce and Emancipation in Jewish Law

COMMENTARY

The Mishnah draws a fascinating comparison between the laws of divorce and the emancipation of slaves, revealing the nuanced legal and ethical considerations in Jewish law. This text from the Mishnah, codified around 200 CE, explores the similarities and differences between bills of divorce and writs of emancipation, emphasizing that a man may sell his slave but not his wife.

Introduction Today’s mishnah begins to compare the laws concerning bills of divorce with those concerning writs of emancipation for slaves. These comparisons will continue until the end of the chapter. In Aramaic the word “get” means document and not necessarily just a divorce document. The word can refer to either divorce or emancipation documents, as well as other documents. Furthermore, there is some similarity to the two situations (marriage in the ancient world and slavery) and between the ways that the two documents (divorce and emancipation) are written…

English Explanation of Mishnah Gittin 1:4:1

The Birth of Zionism

JEWISH THOUGHT

Theodor Herzl's profound disillusionment with European enlightenment and emancipation during the Dreyfus trial led to his transformation and the articulation of the need for a Jewish state. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explores Herzl's reaction to the Dreyfus Affair and its pivotal role in the birth of modern political Zionism.

In January 1895, a young Viennese journalist, Theodor Herzl, reporting on the Dreyfus trial in Paris, was shocked by the sight of crowds shouting, “A mort les juifs!” – “Death to the Jews!” Anti-Semitism, he realized, was alive and strong, not only in places like Russia, where in 1881 pogroms had broken out in more than a hundred towns, but in France itself, home of the revolution, the secular state, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. He became a man transformed. Within a year he had written his response, which he called Der Judenstaat, “The Jewish State…

The Jonathan Sacks Haggadah; Essays, Pesah and the Rebirth of Israel 3

Faith Amidst Emancipation

COMMENTARY

The newfound freedom and emancipation should not lead to a diminution of Jewish faith and identity. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks recounts the story of Baron Nathaniel Rothschild praying for the preservation of faith even after achieving political success.

FROM THIS, LEARN THAT ISRAEL WAS DISTINCT THERE
“It is told of Baron Nathaniel Rothschild that, after winning his battle of many years to have the disabilities to members of the Jewish faith removed from the House of Lords, he slipped away from the hierarchy of Britain congratulating him on the achievement and was to be found prostrate in prayer in a small synagogue in the Whitechapel ghetto of East London, his lips murmuring, ‘Would that this freedom shall not mean the diminution of our faith.’” (Yaacov Herzog, A People that Dwells Alone)

The Jonathan Sacks Haggadah, Magid, First Fruits Declaration 5:3

Solving the Jewish Problem

JEWISH THOUGHT

The Jewish Problem has historically been approached through either assimilatory emancipation or national restoration. Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits, writing during the Holocaust, explores these dual approaches and their implications for Jewish sovereignty and identity.

The case of anti-Semitism very well illustrates the question of our relations with the world, the Jewish Problem, in all its aspects. It is, and has always been, part of the unsolved problem of a sane and just relationship between men and nations. So far, two attempts at the solution of the Jewish Problem have been put forward, assimilatory emancipation and national restoration.

Towards Historic Judaism, IX; Not Because of Our Sins 2:1

Dual Aspects of Redemption

CHASIDUT

God's response to the Israelites' outcry in Egypt was not only about alleviating their physical suffering but also about recognizing their desire to serve God better. The Kedushat Levi, an 18th-century Hasidic commentary by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, offers profound spiritual insights into the dual aspects of redemption—both physical and spiritual.

Exodus 3,7. Hashem said: “I have surely seen the ‎sorry state of My people who are in Egypt, and I have heard ‎their outcry on account of their oppressors.”
Exodus 3,9.“and now, here the outcry of the Children of ‎Israel has come to Me;”‎
It is important for anyone petitioning G’d for help to realize ‎that he must not do so from predominantly egotistical motives, ‎but he must make up his own mind and then convey this to G’d, ‎that the principal reason he is asking for G’d’s help is so that he ‎can become a better servant of the Lord…

Kedushat Levi, Exodus, Shemot 13

The Journey to Freedom

COMMENTARY

The transformation from bondage to a free nation is a gradual process that requires time and the development of new habits and experiences. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' commentary on the Torah portion Sh'lach reflects on the Israelites' journey from slavery in Egypt to becoming a free nation, emphasizing the necessity of time and experience in achieving true freedom.

It takes more than a few days or weeks to turn a population of slaves into a nation capable of handling the responsibilities of freedom. In the case of the Israelites it needed a generation born in liberty, hardened by the experience of the desert, untrammelled by habits of servitude. Freedom takes time, and there are no shortcuts.

Covenant and Conversation; Numbers; The Wilderness Years, Sh'lach, Time as a Factor in Politics 22

The Moral Revolution of the Exodus

HALAKHAH

The Exodus was the first instance in history where a people sought freedom as a moral value without seeking to enslave their former oppressors. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s contemporary halachic work, Peninei Halakhah, explores the ethical significance of the Israelites' quest for freedom.

Indeed, an amazing thing happened at the Exodus. All other peoples who had overthrown their enslavers became haughty and enslaved their former masters. Israel, however, did not try to enslave the Egyptians, even after they had been completely defeated; they only sought their own freedom. This was the first time that freedom appeared in the world as a moral value.

Peninei Halakhah, Pesach 1:2:5

The Shift to Secular Zionism

COMMENTARY

Despite efforts to assimilate, Jews continued to face persistent anti-Semitism, leading to a shift towards secular Zionism. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explores the disillusionment with these movements and the resulting advocacy for Jewish self-determination by figures like Leon Pinsker.

It was at this time that Leon Pinsker, a Jewish physician who had believed that the spread of humanism and enlightenment would put an end to anti-Semitism, experienced a major change of heart and wrote one of the early texts of secular Zionism, Auto-Emancipation (1882). In words strikingly similar to those of Netziv, he said, “In seeking to fuse with other peoples, [Jews] deliberately renounced to some extent their own nationality. Yet nowhere did they succeed in obtaining from their fellow citizens recognition as natives of equal status…

Judaism's Life Changing Ideas; A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible, Balak; A People That Dwells Alone 11

Emancipation for the Betterment of the World

GUIDES

The Talmud discusses the ethical and legal considerations for emancipating a Canaanite slave, highlighting the importance of fulfilling mitzvot and maintaining moral behavior. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, a modern commentator, provides insights into the Talmudic discussions found in tractate Gittin, which addresses various legal matters including the conditions for freeing slaves.

While the Sages accepted the opinion that one should not emancipate his Canaanite slave ab initio, there are circumstances in which, for the betterment of the world, the master may do so. One such case is with regard to a half-slave half-freeman, whom a master emancipates in order to enable him to fulfill the mitzva to procreate. Similarly, a master emancipates a half-maidservant half-free woman if doing so will lead to a reduction in licentious behavior…

Introductions to the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin, Summary of Perek IV 4

Paths to Emancipation

TALMUD

The Talmud provides detailed pathways for the emancipation of Hebrew slaves and maidservants. The tractate Kiddushin in the Talmud discusses these laws, including the completion of six years of labor, the Jubilee Year, and other conditions for emancipation.

MISHNA: A Hebrew slave can be acquired by his master through money or through a document, and he can acquire himself, i.e., he is emancipated, through years, i.e., when he completes his six years of labor, or through the advent of the Jubilee Year, or through the deduction of money. The slave can redeem himself during the six years by paying for his remaining years of slavery. A Hebrew maidservant has one mode of emancipation more than him, as she acquires herself through signs indicating puberty…

Kiddushin 14b:2

The Promise of Redemption

TANAKH

The divine promise of redemption and restoration portrays a vivid and compassionate image of God's unwavering love and commitment to His people. The book of Isaiah contains comforting prophecies about the return to Jerusalem and the ultimate redemption of the Jewish people.

Saying to the prisoners, “Go free,”
To those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall pasture along the roads,
On every bare height shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger or thirst,
Hot wind and sun shall not strike them;
For the One who loves them will lead…

Isaiah 49:9-23

The Spiritual Rebirth of Emancipation

HALAKHAH

The Jubilee year not only restores physical property and freedom but also rejuvenates spiritual and moral self-respect. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s early 20th-century work explores the profound implications of the biblical Jubilee year, where every 50 years, slaves are freed and land is returned to its original owners.

If individuals fall from the status of free men and women and, forgetting their inherent nobility, are made into servants—“the ear that heard the words at Sinai, ‘the children of Israel are My servants’—My servants, and not the servants of My servants”—and yet in spite of this he went and acquired a human master for himself—now his freedom and self-respect are returned to him. Holiness flows into our lives from the highest source, the place from which the nation’s soul suckles light and “freedom is proclaimed throughout the land to all its inhabitants…

Shabbat HaAretz, Introduction 18

The Paradox of Freedom

COMMENTARY

The period of Emancipation was a time when Jews, for the first time, enjoyed civil rights but also abandoned Judaism. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explores the historical parallels between the Emancipation era and earlier periods when Jews strayed from traditional practices.

The eras in which Jews worshipped idols or became Hellenised were Temple times when Jews lived in their land, enjoying either sovereignty or autonomy. The age in which, in Europe, they abandoned Judaism was the period of Emancipation, from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, when for the first time they enjoyed civil rights.

Covenant and Conversation; Deuteronomy; Renewal of the Sinai Covenant, Nitzavim, Not Beyond the Sea 8

Immediate Emancipation

SECOND TEMPLE

The Letter of Aristeas describes a decree ensuring the immediate and systematic liberation of Jewish slaves, highlighting a significant moment in Jewish history under Hellenistic rule. This ancient text, traditionally dated to the 2nd century BCE, provides a unique glimpse into the interactions between Jewish and Greek cultures and the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek.

Wherefore since it is acknowledged that we are accustomed to render justice to all men and especially to those who are unfairly in a condition of servitude, and since we strive to deal fairly with all men according to the demands of justice and piety, we have decreed, in reference to the persons of the Jews who are in any condition of bondage in any part of our dominion, that those who possess them shall receive the stipulated sum of money and set them at liberty and that no man shall show any tardiness in discharging his obligations…

Letter of Aristeas 24

Freedom Without Obligation

MIDRASH

The Torah mandates that Hebrew servants are to be released to freedom without any financial obligation or formal writ of emancipation. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a halachic midrash on Exodus, discusses the laws of Hebrew slaves and their release in the seventh year.

"and on the seventh year he shall go out to freedom": What is the intent of this? From (Devarim 15:13) "And when you send him away, etc." I might think that he must write him a writ of emancipation; it is, therefore, written "he shall go out to freedom." Or I might think that he (the servant) must indemnify him; it is, therefore, written "he shall go out to freedom, gratis."

Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 1:17

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