Reply To: Slavery — The Torah True Way (with Reb HaLeiVi)

I believe you are mistranslating the Hebrew word “avdut” (ayin veis daled vav saf) incorrectly. In American English, the work “slavery” includes the requirement (perhaps defining characteristic) that the owner can kill, maim or sexually exploit the slave, without the possibility of ever gaining complete freedom. The Hebrew word has no such meanings. I suggest a better translation would be “servant”, in some cases qualified with the adjective “hereditary” (though until recently many jobs were hereditary – if you were a farmer, your children would be farmers whether they wanted to or not). It is wrong to say that Yidden ever has anything similar to what the Americans call “slavery” (in fact, the only thing similar to it would probably be the Nazi concentration camps or the Communist gulags).