Fact-Checking the Torah -- Battery -- final

Your assignment for this week was to look at Exodus 21:20-21, and then 26-27 in the same chapter, so that we can finish off the subject of battery.  Then look at Leviticus 25:42-46.

I said that Mishnah had defined 5 types of damages a batterer had to pay and I only described 4.  The fifth one is loss of value.  That means two things one of which I will discuss later.

As of right now, it means that somebody who suffers an injury out of the group listed in Exodus 21:24-25, might not be able to work as well as before the injury.  That means his value as a bondsman drops.  First he gets poor because he can’t earn as much as before the injury.  Then he has to take out a bond on himself because he can’t support his family – but he can’t get as much money on the bond as he could have before he sustained the injury.  Finally, he can’t work as well as he used to, so there’s a chance that when the bondholder has to release him, the bond won’t be fully paid up. 

So when the judges in a case of battery assess damages, they take into account this drop in value as a bondsman and they add that to the other damages assessed.

The bondholder is liable for battery for all five classes of damages.  The bondsman is allowed to pay off the bond with the money award.  What’s more, even if the award wasn’t enough to pay off the whole bond, the bondholder who puts his bondsman in the hospital doesn’t get to hang onto him when the time on the bond expires.  That’s what it means by “it’s his money.”  The bondholder loses money if he puts the bondsman in the hospital so he can’t work, and if the bond expires without being paid off, the bondholder can’t hold onto it just because the bondsman was in the hospital due to battery.

And the bondholder can be tried for murder if the bondsman dies.

Now look at the conflict in verses 26 and 27 compared with verses 24 and 25:  If you beat your bondsman or bondswoman and put out the eye or tooth, for the eye the person goes out free and for the tooth, you pay compensation.  That seems to be a conflict and we have to find a verse to resolve it.

The resolution is Leviticus 25:42-46.  These verses describe a set of bondsmen for whom the situation is different.  They have to be freed, not just paid damages, if the bondholder puts out an eye; and the bondholder owes damages for other injuries, like striking out a tooth.

You remember from the story of Noach that his youngest son Cham was the father of Canaan, and Gd condemned Canaan to be slaves.  At least, that’s the urban legend.

Jewish law says that these people could take out bonds on themselves that did not have to be cancelled at a given date, but they had to be treated right.  They might be assigned menial labor, and they might be bequeathed to the purchaser’s descendants, but he didn’t have rights of life and death over them.  The money for striking out a tooth absolutely belonged to the Canaanite slave, and he could pay it back toward the bond.  So a Canaanite slave could buy his freedom if the bondholder committed battery in an extreme degree or more than once.

Now we have destroyed the urban legend that the Bible justifies the slavery imposed on Africans kidnapped and brought to the U.S. as labor. 

Next week we’re going to continue with the bonding situation and unload another urban legend about Jewish law.  Read Exodus 21:7-11.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:14

Genesis 1:14

 

יד וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי מְאֹרֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם לְהַבְדִּיל בֵּין הַיּוֹם וּבֵין הַלָּיְלָה וְהָיוּ לְאֹתֹת וּלְמוֹעֲדִים וּלְיָמִים וְשָׁנִים:

 

Transliteration: Va-yomer elohim y’hi m’orot birqia ha-shamaim l’havdil beyn ha-yom u-veyn ha-laylah v’hayu l’otot ul’moadim ul’yamim v’shanim.

Translation:    Gd said let there be lights in the raqia of the heaven to separate day and night and they shall be for signs and warnings and days and years.

Letters in this lesson:

Vocabulary in this lesson:

מְאֹרֹת	lights
אֹתֹת	signs
מוֹעֲדִים	warnings
שָׁנִים	years

 

Quick quiz:  Which of these words are masculine gender and which are feminine gender?  This is not a trick question.

 

Usually moadim is translated as “seasons” because of its relationship to the phrase chol ha-moed which means the days of Pesach and Sukkot which are not “holy convocations.”  That is, some work is permitted on them, though the religious do not go to their jobs on those days.  You can cook on them, you can light lights, and so on.

 

The relationship to “warning” is that when the celestial signs are in a given configuration, you know that a holy convocation is approaching.  Every 7^th sun is Shabbat; every 29^th or 30^th day is New Moon; every 12^th New Moon is Rosh Ha-Shanah; the 10^th day after that is Yom Kippur; the next full moon is Sukkot; every 6^th New Moon after Rosh Ha-Shanah is Adar; if this Adar comes so early in the year that the barley will not be ripe 6 weeks later, then the next New Moon is Adar II and the New Moon after that is Nisan; the Full Moon of Nisan is Passover; the 50^th day after Passover is Shavuot.

 

A year has 12 or 13 New Moons in it; they alternate. 

 

You will need to know the word moadim because forms of it will turn up in Exodus and Numbers.  An ox is muad if it has gored somebody to death 2 days in a row; if it gores somebody to death on the 3^rd day, it must be put to death.  It is too dangerous to keep around, and its owner can also be put to death for failing to keep it locked up carefully enough or keep people away from it.  Likewise a person who tries three times to kill somebody and finally succeeds can be tried and executed if convicted.  There is more about this on the Fact-Checking page.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

At last!!!!

There's that sign of spring I was waiting for!  The soft, moist, tender air as things leaf out and the oxygen in the air turns fresh.
Anyway I will be too busy for the next few days to blog but I will be back Thursday for your next Hebrew lesson.
I have two days of cleaning left before Passover.
Then there are two days of holy convocation.
There will be another two days next week.
I love Passover.  It's the greatest sign of spring there is!


We were slaves to Pharoh in Egypt and the Lord freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. Had not the holy One liberated our people from Egypt, then we, our children and our children’s children would still be enslaved to Pharoah in Egypt.


NOW IS THE TIME OF OUR FREEDOM.


© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved 

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Exodus 21:1-11 etc.

Your assignment was to read Exodus 21:1-11, Leviticus 25:39-40, and Deuteronomy 15:12-18

The Exodus portion starts like this.

When you buy a Hebrew bondsman six years he shall serve and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

If he came in single he shall go out single, if he was married his wife goes out with him.

If his master gives him a wife and she bears sons or daughters to him [the servant], her children shall belong to her master and he will go out single.

If the servant absolutely declares I love my master and my wife and my children, I will not go out free

His master shall cause him to approach Gd and the door or the doorposts and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl and he shall serve him forever.

 

What they say is that when a man becomes poor, he can bond himself out.  In fact, it also says that when you know somebody is poor and he offers to bond himself, you have to buy the bond.

A bond was an exclusive services contract.  The bondsman couldn’t work for anybody except the bondholder.  But the bond couldn’t last more than six years unless the bondsman explicitly refused to let the bondholder cancel the contract.  And even then it had to end in the yovel, which happened every 50^th year.  If you bought somebody’s bond in year 46 of the yovel, it could only last 3 years even if the work provided wasn’t the same value as the bond.  That’s in the verses from Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

But somebody had to buy the bond so that the poor man could live through the next three years instead of dying of want.  That’s in the verses from Leviticus.

The next clue is that the services provided could not be menial.  They had to be substantial and contribute in a meaningful way toward paying off the bond. 

The family tie was inviolable.  The wife still belonged with her husband, even if he was under bond.  Also, since the bondsman couldn’t work for anybody else, the bondholder had to support not only him, but also his wife and children.  That’s implied by the verses from Leviticus.

Next, a married man might be given a non-Jewish concubine – yeah, right, I can really see his wife allowing that! – but not a non-married man.  This was to prevent the chance that he would decide not to let the bond expire, which is discussed in the verses from Exodus and Deuteronomy.

These are more Jewish laws that the slaveholders in America ignored.  They didn’t free people after 6 years, or even after 50 years.  They violated the marriage bond.  If they hired out their slaves, the money didn’t count toward freeing the slave, which Jewish law requires.

Next week we’re going back to the subject of battery to finish it off, so look at Exodus 21:20-21, which I skipped over before, because here is where that rubber meets the road, and then 26-27 in the same chapter.  Also read Leviticus 25:42-46.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:13

Genesis 1:13

 

יג וַיְהִי־עֶרֶב וַיְהִי־בֹקֶר יוֹם שְׁלִישִׁי:

 

Transliteration: Va-y’hi erev va-y’hi voqer yom shlishi.

Translation:     There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

Letters in this lesson:

Vocabulary in this lesson:

שְׁלִישִׁי

third

 

So let’s do the past of oseh, “make, do,” in the qal or pal binyan and you will see how the vowels work with an ayin at the start.

 

Singular	Plural	Number/Gender
עָשִיתְי	עָשִינוּ	First person
עָשִיתָ	עֲשִיתֶם	Second person/masculine
עָשִית	עֲשִיתֶן	Second person/feminine
עָשָה	עָשוּ	Third person
עָשְתָה	עָשוּ

 

Notice that the third person plural is the same for both masculine and feminine genders.   This is true of all past tense verbs.

 

Also notice the change in the vowel under the ayin in the second person plural.  This is true for alef and chet as well as for ayin.  Yod takes a shva unless preceded by vav and then the vav takes a chiriq (“ee”); heh takes a chataf segol unless preceded by vav and then it takes chiriq.   Nun takes a shva; resh takes a chiriq (“ee”).  Don’t try to memorize these rules.  Just realize that the letters used in the verbs all have different ways of being regular, and for these letters, this is how they are regular in the past tense. 

 

Learn the forms of asah because you will see all of them in either Torah or the rest of Tannakh.  Just like in English, “make” and “do” are high-frequency words.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY yogurt all-purpose product

Now that you've made 4 quarts of yogurt, and have 3 cups of yogurt in the freezer for future batches, use 1 quart to make "yogurt cheese."
You need a 2 quart saucepan
a strainer that fits mostly into it
a package of cheesecloth
1 TBSP onion powder
1 TBSP garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper

Mix the yogurt and seasonings.
Unroll the cheesecloth until you have enough to fit all over the bottom of the strainer in two layers.
Cut it off and put it in the strainer.
Set the strainer in the saucepan.
Scoop the seasoned yogurt into the cheesecloth.
Cover with the lid of the pan.
Put in the refrigerator.
In 24 hours, take the saucepan out, hold over the sink, lift out the strainer, and pour the liquid in the bottom into the sink.
The liquid is whey.
Put the strainer back in the pan and put the whole contraption back in the fridge for at least 12 hours.

You can use the yogurt cheese for a dip for potato chips or veggies. 
It has almost the consistency of sour cream so you can substitute it for that.  I've done this with potatoes: cook the potatoes, add some broccoli just before the potatoes are done, then serve and slather with the yogurt cheese.
It's like soft cream cheese so you can spread it on toast, English muffins and bagels.

You spent $1.50 on this quart of yogurt and you got about 3/4 cup yogurt cheese from it.  That's about half the price of sour cream or a pre-made chip dip.  How is that not a good thing?
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- eavesdropping

I was party Wednesday night to a bedtime disagreement between two robins.
Normally I think the sound of a robin clucking himself to roost is soothing.
That night maybe they were disputing who would use the roost. 
They love euonymus bushes, which are thick even in winter and, if taken care of, produce berries in winter.
There's plenty of euonymus around, but maybe we have a lot of robins in my vicinity.
Attracted, no doubt, by a chance at taking control of the chokeberries I put out in the winter.
Anyway I don't think it came to blows, just words.
I ran out of chokeberries and once when my robin flew toward the house in hopes, I put out some finely diced dried mango.
It disappeared but I'm pretty sure it was a squirrel who ate it.  No more of that.
Anyway the birds are making up for lost time now that it has finally gotten warm.  Lots of doves courting, finches calling, two woodpeckers yesterday as well as a white-throated sparrow, and our spectacular new mockingbird.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved