Gittin 42: Slaves Who Are Given Half of their Freedom

A slave can be freed through a letter of manumission.  But we learn about half-slaves.  What happened to them?  They might have been bought by two people.  Alternatively, an owner might have freed half of a slave to facilitate a negotiation with someone else.  Regardless, it is clear that the rabbis have concerns about a half-freed slave.  Would he work for his master one day and for himself the next?  How could he marry (other than marrying another slave and relegating himself to slavery for the rest of his life)?

The rabbis discuss cases that are quite unusual, including two slaves, each of whom who has been given half of their freedom.  They quote contradictory baraitot regarding minuscule differences between two interpretations.

Amud (b) walks us through the many circumstances that might confuse people regarding the laws of slavery.  We learn a number of ‘what ifs’.  Who pays the penalty if  a slave has been gored by an ox?  What if a master hurts a slave – knocks out his tooth and then blinds his eye, for example?  Who is paid, and how much are they paid?  And what if a slave has no bill of manumission when his master dies– can he partake of teruma?  Finally, what do we do if a priest has children with his wife and his maidservant, and no one knows which child is whose?   The Gemara answers this one easily: all children get teruma, for a priest shares teruma with his children and with his slaves and their children.

The rabbis begin a conversation about something that we know is about to happen.  If something hasn’t happened yet but it is about to occur, we can assume that it will happen and in fact make rulings based on that assumption.  How might this affect the slave?

Again, discussions of slavery are uncomfortable and upsetting.  More on this uncomfortable reality soon, I’m sure.