The despicable end of the thief

Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto’s talks are known throughout the Jewish world. They combine chassidic teachings and philosophy, along with tips for a better life. We have collected pearls from his teachings that are relevant to our daily lives. This week he comments on the Torah section of Mishpatim.

"His master shall bring him to the judges, and he shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl." (21:6).

Why was specifically the ear pierced of all the body parts? Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai said (Kiddushin 20:2): The ear that heard on Mount Sinai ‘You shall not steal”, yet went and stole - let it be pierced with an awl! R. Shimon would explain this as an a priori statement. Why were the door and the doorpost chosen of all the house features? The Almighty was intimating that the door and the doorpost were witnesses in Egypt when God passed over the lintel and the two doorposts of the Israelite homes after having declared that the Israelites are His slaves, and are not slaves to slaves. Yet this one went and acquired a human master to himself! Let his ear be pierced with an awl!" (Rashi).

The commentators delve into why the slave’s ear is pierced precisely next to the door, and nowhere else? Why exactly at the doorpost? And why with an awl and no other tool?

Perhaps one explanation is that martzea (“an awl”) has a value of exactly 400 in numerology. As we know, the Israelites were supposed to be in Egypt for four hundred years, and as God said to our father Abraham in the Covenant between the Pieces, "Know that your progeny will dwell in a land not theirs and they will enslave them, and they will torment them for four hundred years" (Genesis 15:13). If so, the awl represents the 400 years that the Israelites had to be enslaved in the land of Egypt. In the end, God shortened their time of enslavement by taking into account the horror and difficulty of enslavement so that the 400 years was condensed into 210 years. The difficulty and enslavement of the 210 years equaled the original 400 years.

The same person who sold himself as a slave shows that he is ready to continue being a slave. He is OK with staying in Egypt for 400 years and maybe even more - for this he is punished by having his ear pierced precisely with an awl whose value equals 400.

The reason why the piercing should take place on the doorpost may be explained by the fact that the nations of the world argued against the Israelites’ pure lineage. After all, if the Egyptians controlled them, they could also have forced them to commit lewd acts and compromised their lineage (see Rashi Psalms 122:4). Indeed, God testifies that "You are completely beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you" (Song of Songs 4:7) All the Israelites maintained their holy and pure lineage without the Egyptians blemishing it.

The Almighty testifies "A testimony to Joseph. They put him over the Land of Egypt." (Psalms 81:6) God placed His name around the names of all the tribes. God attached the Heh in the beginning and the Yud at the end (when recounting all the Israelite families in Numbers 26). By putting the letters of His holy Name at the beginning and end of the names of the Israelite families leaving Egypt, the Almighty testifies that all of them were holy and pure without any manifestation of immorality.

The best proof of this was given in the plague of firstborns, when God went from door to door, and every house in which there was an Egyptian firstborn the person died. But among the Israelites, no one died, and thus it was proven that not even one child with Egyptian lineage had been born to them. The blood of the Passover sacrifice on the lintel and doorposts was the proof that the Israelites retained their holiness and purity even after 210 years in slavery. They remained pure and were solely descended from our holy Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the 12 tribes, without a trace of blemish. The doorpost therefore symbolizes the holiness and purity of the Israelites.

The slave in front of us went through a complex process. In the first stage he sinned by theft and because of that he was sold as a slave. For this, he is not necessarily condemned - "A thief should not be condemned when he steals to satiate his hungry soul." (Proverbs 6:3). This is a person who reached such a difficult financial situation that he deteriorated to a life of crime out of hardship and was thus sold into slavery. For this offense, we do not pierce his ear. But when after six years, when he has the right to go out and live his own life yet prefers to give up being a full-fledged Israelite and continue living with a Canaanite slave girl, we remind him that the Israelites came out of Egypt and are expected to live as free men by piercing his ear with an awl whose numerological value is 400.

He is also dragged to the doorpost - the same doorpost that testified at the time of the Plague of the Firstborn to the sanctity of the Israelites’ lineage throughout the Egyptian exile. They say to that slave “For 210 years the Israelites remained holy and pure while you are ready to spend the rest of your life with a Canaanite slave girl out of convenience? That is why they pierce his ear with an awl and tell him: You didn’t listen when God said at Mount Sinai that the Israelites are slaves to Me. You are showing contempt for the sanctity of the Israelite lineage that your ancestors preserved. There is no choice but to pierce your ear and remind you that Israelites are expected to live on a different plain. The Israelites are not slaves. They are an exalted people that God redeemed from Egypt with great miracles.

This article was written in cooperation with Shuva Israel