The Weekly Daf #380
Kiddushin 14-20
Issue #380 Parshat Bamidbar
Week of 28 Iyar - 5 Sivan 5761 / May 21 - 27, 2001
By Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, Dean, Ohr Somayach Institutions
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SICK LEAVE

If a Jewish slave who has an obligation to work for his master 
for six years fell ill for three of those years, he has no 
obligation to make them up by working another three years when 
his six-year servitude is completed.

Does this rule apply as well to a teacher or worker who has 
been hired for a long period and is unable to work for a 
substantial amount of time because of illness?

This is the subject of a major debate between the early 
commentaries.  Tosefot cites the opinion of some authorities 
who compared the teacher to the slave and considered him 
entitled to full compensation without a need to make up for 
the time lost because of illness.  This opinion appears in the 
commentary of Rabbi Mordechai bar Hillel Ashkenazi (Mesechta 
Bava Metzia, par. 347).  It is based on the fact that if the 
slave who did something wrong (either by stealing or by 
selling himself into slavery against the wish of Hashem, Who 
wants Jews to be slaves only to Him and not to His slaves) is 
given such consideration, then this leniency should certainly 
apply to the teacher who did nothing wrong.

Tosefot, however, rejects this comparison between slave and 
teacher.  One of the distinctions he makes is that the slave 
is considered the property of the owner during the six years 
of his servitude and the payment he received was for giving 
his master this ownership.  His obligation to his owner is 
only to work as much as he is able; if he is unable to work 
because of illness, he has no obligation to make up for lost 
time.  The teacher, on the other hand, is not the property of 
his employer and merely contracts to perform a service for 
pay.  His failure to provide this service because of illness 
does therefore not entitle him to compensation.

Other distinctions are made by Tosefot here and by Rosh in 
mesechta Bava Metzia (sixth perek par. 6).  The latter cites 
the opinion of Rabbi Meir that if the owner paid the teacher 
in advance then he has no obligation to make up the time lost 
because of illness.  But if he has not yet paid him he must 
make up the lost time if he wishes to be paid in full.  Both 
the opinion of Tosefot and the qualification of Rabbi Meir are 
cited by Rema (Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 333:5) as 
halachic conclusions.

* Kiddushin 17a

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SLAVE OR MASTER?

The condition of the Jewish slave, who is the subject of so 
much of the first perek of our mesechta, was radically 
different from the image that the word slavery conjures up in 
our minds.

In Biblical and Talmudic times a Jew could become a slave in 
one of two ways.  If he was convicted of theft and lacked the 
funds to compensate his victim, the court sold him into 
slavery for six years so that the money paid by his purchaser 
could be used for such compensation.  There was also the 
possibility of a Jew who reached such a desperate level of 
destitution that the only way he could provide for himself and 
his family was to sell himself as a slave.

In either case, the Torah laid down severe restrictions on the 
manner in which such a slave is sold and the nature of the 
work which can be assigned to him.  These restrictions were to 
insure that his dignity as a Jew was maintained.  As if these 
restrictions were not enough to achieve this goal, the Torah 
explains the reasons for a slave wishing to stay on with his 
master when his six-year period is over as "for it is good for 
him to be with you" (Devarim 15:16).  This is interpreted by 
our sages as a directive to the owner of a Jewish slave to 
assure that he enjoys the same quality of food, drink and 
sleeping accommodations as his master, a requirement which led 
the sages to conclude that "one who purchases a Jewish slave 
is buying himself a master instead."

Tosefot raises the question as to why the Jewish slave is 
considered like a master to his master when all that is 
demanded of his master is to show him equality?  As an answer 
Tosefot cites the Jerusalem Talmud which discusses the case of 
a master who has only one good mattress in his possession.  If 
he keeps it for himself and relegates the slave to a bed of 
straw, he has not fulfilled the requirement of equality.  To 
withhold the use of the mattress from both would be behaving 
with Sodomite insensitivity.  The only course available then 
is to give the mattress to the slave, which in a sense makes 
him enjoy the status of master of his master rather than being 
his slave.

* Kiddushin 20a


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