February is Black History Month. While the struggle over civil rights continues, this week's Parsha behooves us to examine slavery from a Torah standpoint. At one time, White preachers from the South spoke of the "biblical" obligation to enslave. This seemingly gave slave owners' license to be extremely cruel to their "property." The effects of that era still resonate today. A simple examination of the verses dealing with slavery reveals a different reality. One example is the Chinuch's explanation as to why a slave owner receives capital punishment for beating his non-Jewish slave to death. He explains that it is G-d's will to eradicate extreme cruelty from His people. To be possessed by anger to the point of murder, is not tolerable.

Another area that stands out are the unique laws that direct the Jewish People how to treat the Jewish thief. Rabbi Samson Rephael Hirsch points out that nowhere do we find prison as an option for punishment. The Jewish thief is sold to a Jewish family, who are commanded to treat him in a certain manner in order not to crush his spirit. Further, he is only sold if he can't pay back the value of the object and not for the additional fine. Rabbi Hirsch asks, why is it that only stealing requires being sold into slavery? Why isn't slavery a punishment for all other scenarios that might make one obligated monetarily to his fellow Jew?

Rabbi Hirsch proposes that it is the lack of respect for another's possessions that is behind this. An individual's property is part of his greater spiritual reality. When an individual commits robbery, he displays a total disregard and lack of respect for another's property. Being incubated in slavery, removed from self-worth, gives one time to reflect on the realities of life.

In fact the idea of being sold for six years and freed on the seventh reflects this concept. This slave had fallen into the world of six, which represents the physical, and ignores the world of seven, the world of the hidden spiritual. The thief ignored a higher purpose to life. The six year period of slavery, says Rabbi Hirsch, is an opportunity to subordinate his infatuation with physicality, and elevate himself to an appreciation of the seventh, the spiritual.

The Nesivos Shalom asks about the slave who chooses to remain in servitude and gets his ear drilled as a result. His lack of desire to be a direct servant of G-d is the reason for this punishment. Why, then, doesn't this ceremony occur as soon as he sold?

The Nesivos Shalom answers that there are different cycles of six and seven. Each represents a Jew on a certain level. Shabbos happens each week in the home of a Jew who understands the purpose of life. However, there are those for whom Shabbos occurs only after six years. The verse that gives us the command to toil the land for six years and let it rest on the seventh, characterizes the individual who is attached to the land, i.e. the physical. For a person in slavery, six years is a chance to learn to learn how to bring in Shabbos (the spiritual) and make Shabbos a weekly occurrence. If even after his initial time in slavery he cannot appreciate the rigors of a Jewish life, he needs a more intense process of six times six, and seven times seven to fully realize a higher purpose. This is why the Jewish slave doesn't have his ear drilled immediately. G-d gives the thief the chance to reflect upon his sorry state, with the goal of Shabbos (the spiritual) at the end. Failure to appreciate this process, demands that his ear be drilled, for now he is deliberately refusing to let go of the physical. May we never forget that G-d is Keili, our personal G-d (as described in the prayer Adon Olam), that we all have the potential for a personal connection with Him. Maintaining that awareness is the key to spiritual liberty and not physical enslavement.