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Freedom in Servitude, and Servitude in Freedom - Thoughts on Human Values in Our Times
by HaRav Yosef Dovid Epstein zt"l
This article was originally published 30 years ago, in 1991.
A hesped for HaRav Epstein zt"l is available here.
In the first part of this essay, HaRav Epstein said that there are no longer any struggles over ideology, all conflict nowadays is over pragmatic issues. He noted that the two great political movements of our day, socialism and democracy, had proved grandiose disappointments. The main cause of the failure is that the impetus for change came not from noble impulses but from those who stood to gain materially from the new order. In this final part, he develops this idea further and contrasts it with the approach of the Torah.
But, you may ask, what does it matter if the pressure for equal rights began with the oppressed or was a noble awakening among the prominent and those in power?
The difference is simple and fundamental: when the movement is started by those who are to be the main beneficiaries, there is no bound whatsoever to their desire and goal. When the slave becomes king, he wants everything, he demands everything. When one revolts because of a vested interest in freedom, he is all to likely to be smitten with a hunger for freedom, along with a lust for revenge. Who will then put a limit on this hunger and lust? It will almost inevitable end in tyranny and permissiveness!
Only when the original impulse is from an internal moral imperative, then the dedication to improving the lot of the downtrodden is a commitment of benevolence, and benevolence has a limit: hamevazbeiz al yevazbeiz yoser meichomesh - one who gives should not donate more than a fifth.
Now we come to the wonderful concept of freedom and independence according to the light of the Torah. Freedom and independence promised by the Torah is not a matter of hunger for simple independence and permissiveness, but rather a matter of a quality of wholeness and perfection that is hidden in freedom and independence.
The freedom and independence in the Torah's scheme of things have their source in a recognition of the worth of the soul. Servitude, lack of independence, lowers the soul, dampens its aspirations and limits its concepts of growth and kedusha, and even its grasp of emunah and bitachon, faith and confidence, in the Master of the universe.
As a result, self-sale into servitude, though allowed in the Torah, is permitted only in cases of extreme poverty, a situation of "nakedness and lack of everything" (cf. Toras Cohanim, Parshas Behar, and also Rambam, Hilchos Avodim). One who chooses to continue his servitude because of a desire for an earthly master ("I love my master") is actually guilty of trying to cast off the yoke of Heaven, and transgresses the commandment of "You should have no other gods before Me." (cf. Tosafos, Bava Kama, 87, and Yerushalmi Kiddushin, 81). As a result he actually loses in his status as a Jew (see Yokor Tiferes of the Radvaz, in his comments to Rambam, Hilchos Avodim. See also references to Zohar there.)
Servitude of the Torah is not being subservient, since subservience means being under the control of an alien, external force. One who is "subservient" to Torah and mitzvos, even though he genuinely binds all his powers and abilities to service of Hashem (cf. the prayer before donning tefillin), yet all he is really doing is returning to the true sources of freedom and independence, namely, the Diving part of man that has the potential to unite and merge with the font of Divinity, with the absolute adonus of eternity. Is there a freedom or independence that is higher than this? (See also Zohar Parshas Behar on the posuk "ish el mishpachto toshuvu" which explains that the liberation of the soul on yovel is the return of the neshomoh to its own madreigoh.)
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