It’s a law that catches you off-guard: is a Jew in Eretz Yisrael really permitted to sell himself to a wealthy non-Jew when he falls on hard financial times? What about the spiritual dangers? The law covers that part too.
If your brother becomes destitute… and is sold to a resident non-Jew…” (Vayikra 25:47)
This scenario from Parshas Behar is not only a surprise in itself but it encompasses a timely moral lesson as well. Picture an impoverished Jew dumped from the wheel of fortune at its nadir being led away to the home of a wealthy non-Jew who has just purchased him as a slave.
This image doesn’t come from the archives of our painful oppressive exiles. It is from our days as a Jewish country governed by halachah — from Biblical times. It depicts a situation that could come up at a time when Am Yisrael has full sovereignty in their own land. It shows us clearly that a non-Jewish resident of Eretz Yisrael could within the parameters of Torah law become the lord and master of a Jew a member of the ruling majority.
