Torah Portion for 08/05/2023

In Leviticus, it is said that if someone becomes poor and sells themselves to you, they should serve as a hired servant, not a slave. After a certain period of time, they should be released and allowed to return to their own clan. However, slaves from other nations can be owned and passed down as inheritance. There is also a right of redemption for those who are sold as servants. It is important to treat everyone with fairness and not rule over them harshly. Additionally, it is emphasized that idols should not be worshipped and the Sabbath should be observed. Leviticus, chapter 25, verse 39, through chapter 26, verse 2. And when your brother who dwells by you becomes poor and sells himself to you, do not make him serve as a slave, but as a hired servant, as a settler he is with you and serves you until the year of Yovel. And then he shall leave you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own clan, and even return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Mitsrayim. They are not sold as slaves. Do not rule over him with harshness, but you shall fear your Elohim. And your male and female slaves, whom you have from the nations that are around you, from them you buy male and female slaves, and also from the sons of the strangers sojourning among you, from them you buy, and from their clans who are with you, which they shall bring forth in your land, and they shall be your property. And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession, but they are your slaves for all time. But over your brothers, the children of Yisrael, you do not rule with harshness, one over another. Now when a sojourner or a settler with you becomes rich, and your brother with him becomes poor, and sells himself to the settler or sojourner with you, or to a member of the sojourner's clan, after he has been sold, there is a right of redemption to him. One of his brothers does redeem him, or his uncle or his uncle's son does redeem him, or anyone who is a close relative to him in his clan does redeem him, or if he is able, then he shall redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him who bought him, the price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that he was sold to him, until the year of Yovel, as the days of a hired servant it is with him. But if there are yet many years, according to them he repays the price of his redemption from the silver of his purchase. And a few years are left until the year of Yovel, then he shall reckon with him, and according to his years he repays him the price of his redemption. He is with him as a yearly hired servant, and he does not rule with harshness over him before your eyes. And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the year of Yovel, he and his children with him. Because the children of Israel are servants to me, they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Mitsrayim, I am Yahweh your Elohim. Do not make idols for yourselves, and do not set up a carved image or a pillar for yourselves, and do not place a stone image in your land to bow down to it. For I am Yahweh your Elohim. Guard my Sabbath and reverence my set-apart place. I am Yahweh. Amen. Amen.