Shabbat Parashat Mishpatim - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Mishpatim - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master, that he did not designate her for himself,

  he shall have her redeemed, he shall not have authority to sell her to a strange people

  in his betrayal of her. [Shemot 21:8]

Among a number of other things seemingly inconsistent with our modern secular ways,

the Torah permits a father to sell his young daughter into servitude. Exactly what does

this mean? Certainly there are all sorts of limitations on who can sell the girl and when,

but the real 'why' comes in our verse and the following one. The relevant phrase is that

"he did not designate her", or in the next verse "he designates her for his son". What is

this designating? What does the displeasing have to do with it?

Judaism has many rules about slavery. The concept seems distant from what we today

like to understand as being Toradic because we today think of slavery in terms of chains

and whips and barbarous treatment. But the word is eved, the same word that translates

to servant, as in a servant of God or a servant who is poor and becomes dependent for

survival upon his employer. In our case, the girl is not being sold into chains, rather to a

home in which she will be fed, the father being unable to do so. Our verse calls the action

of the father a betrayal of the girl, even though it is for her own good.

The rules of this servitude severely restrict what the master can do with her, and how he

must treat her. She is more a burden than a servant. Why, then, would he pay money for her?

There is an implied agreement in this sale that the master intends to marry the girl. If he

prefers, he can marry her to his son. Thus in verse 9 it tells that he must treat her as a

daughter of Israel, meaning she is not a piece of property but a full Jew, to be treated as

a daughter-in-law or wife.

These verses talk about what happens if he finds her displeasing. Should he and his son

both fail to marry the girl, she is redeemed from her status of servitude immediately and

returned to her father's home. The master may not sell her to anyone else,  the father may

not sell her again to anyone, certainly not a non-Jew.

There is discussion as to who the term betrayal applies, whether the father for having had to

sell her in the first place or whether to the master for in effect breaking a marriage engagement.

It would seem to apply to both.

Instead of giving what we might think of as inappropriate rights here to a defenseless girl, the

Torah is instructing us about the lengths to which we must go to protect her. The man who has

money is providing cash to a poor father and also taking in a girl who would otherwise starve,

giving her a permanent home and future.