Bava Kamma 064

7:
If someone steals [an ox or a sheep] from his father and slaughters it or sells it and subsequently his father dies … he must make four-fold or five-fold repayment. In this case the chronology is important because if the thief's father dies before the animal is slaughtered or sold then no payment needs to be made.

8:
The Torah [Deuteronomy 21:15-17] makes it very clear how a person's property is to be allocated after his death. (In other words, there is no point in his making a will because the allocation of the Torah is the only allocation that rabbinic jurisprudence recognises.)

This means that a man's property is divided between all his sons (to the exclusion of his daughters for whom a different arrangement is made) in such a manner as the eldest son gets double the amount that each of the other sons gets. For example, if David has four sons and has one million dinars to bequeath upon his death his property is divided by five, yielding two hundred thousand dinars each for the three younger sons and four hundred thousand dinars for the eldest son.

9:
David's eldest son, Sam, steals an ox from his father and sells it to Sara at a profit. The ox was worth fifty thousand dinars. Sam is apprehended but before he can make amends David dies. Strictly speaking, upon David's death the ox belongs to Sam, so why should he have to repay David's estate the sum of 250,000 dinars? Our mishnah rules that Sam must make that five-fold repayment because the sum affects the total amount owing to each of his brothers.

10:
However, if Sam steals his father's ox and David dies before Sam can effect the sale to Sara then Sam need not make any repayment since at the time of the sale (after David's death) the ox belonged to him anyway.

To be continued.

Two people have sent me messages concerning the fate of the Eved Ivri who was married. You will recall the ruling of the Torah [Exodus 21:3-4]:

Naomi Graetz writes:

You write (either in your name or the rabbis) "No self-respecting Israelite should elect to be the slave of another slave." But in the case of the Israelite who opts to remain with his master, he is also opting to remain with his wife and children. I think that is praiseworthy, even if it is at the cost of his freedom!

And Reuven Artzi writes:

The duty to release the mother-bird [before taking her eggs from the nest] teaches compassion; but the release of the slave into freedom places the concept of compassion and warm-heartedness in doubt, making personal freedom stand against family ties. "You want to be free? OK, but without your wife and children." Is this not a trap? What freedom is there without the nuclear family? Who would agree to this? Having one's ear pierced is preferable.

I respond:

When we read the ruling of the Torah with our modern understanding and our modern susceptibilities then the critique of Noami and Reuven is certainly in place. But, of course, we must understand the ruling in terms of its own time and place, not ours.

The Hebrew slave was different from all other slaves in ancient times: he served for a fixed term and then left service. Other slaves were slaves for life unless they were able to buy their freedom or were manumitted by their master. It was profitable for the master to increase the number of his slaves (i.e. his working force) by mating two of his slaves. The children born from such a union were called "homeborn slaves", in Hebrew yelid bayit. These homeborn slaves, it was universally recognised at the time, belong exclusively to the master: the parents were no more responsible for their children than the master's cow and his bull were responsible for their calf. The Torah is always careful to distinguish between slaves and homeborn slaves. For example:

And earlier, when setting out to rescue his nephew Lot,

So, in our case, the Hebrew slave knew that he would have to leave his wife and children with his master when he agreed to mate with her and to father them. He could have refused, of course.