Bava Kamma 059

6:
We have established that in Talmudic jurisprudence theft is a kind of tort, not a crime in the modern sense. In other words, the person whose property was stolen must sue the suspected thief in court for the retrieval of at least the value of his property. If the suspect is found to be liable he must indemnify the person from whom he has stolen. In all cases the indemnification will be the return of the property stolen or its estimated value together with a further payment as a kind of punishment. If an ox was stolen the repayment will be five times the value of the ox that was stolen; if a sheep was stolen the repayment will be four times the value of the sheep that was stolen; if anything else was stolen the repayment will be double the value of what was stolen.

7:
Since theft of oxen and sheep are no longer everyday occurrences and theft of other kinds of property is, sadly, rampant, we shall concentrate in our explanation here on the kind of payment which is called "double indemnification" (in Hebrew, tashlumey kefel).

8:
The Torah [Exodus 22:2-3] stipulates two possible punishments:

In other words, if the thief is no longer in possession of what was stolen he must be sold into slavery; if he still has in his possession what he stole he must pay double indemnification. The sages modified this judgment slightly. In brief let us say as follows: if the thief can make restitution from his property he must do so by paying the double indemnification – even if the specific object that was stolen is no longer in his possession. Furthermore, if the thief can raise from his own property at least the value of what he stole but cannot also pay the extra indemnification then the person he stole from must make do with the return of his property or its value and he must forego the "fine". But if after the realization of all his assets the thief cannot make repayment then he must be sold into slavery.

9:
The very idea of selling someone into slavery is repugnant to our modern susceptibilities. But before we make judgement we should understand what the sages did with this institution of slavery. We are dealing with what our tradition calls eved ivri, a Jewish slave. (Non-Jewish slaves were a completely different issue and we are not concerned with them at this time.)

10:
A Jew could become a slave to another Jew only because of extreme poverty. This is because he had incurred debts which he cannot repay. For example:

In the case of theft the thief has incurred a debt (to the householder from whom he stole) and cannot make repayment even after the realization of all his assets. He is thus in extreme poverty.

11:
In Mishneh Torah [Laws of Slavery 1:1] Rambam succinctly describes the law of the Hebrew slave:

Since it is our source for the institution of the Hebrew slave let us examine the text of the Torah:

We should note several points here:

1. The term of servitude is limited to six years, no more and no less;
2. At the end of his term of servitude the slave must be manumitted gratis (without any payment to his owner);
3. The slave has the option of foregoing his right to freedom and remaining with his master indefinitely.

Clearly, this is not the kind of slavery which we nowadays associate with the term.

To be continued.