|
This series has focused on the connection between the morning blessings
and the individual's daily renewal of spiritual energy and purpose. This installment
discusses the sixteenth blessing. "Baruch
ata …sh'lo asa li aved." "Blessed are You, L-rd
our G-d, King of the universe,
who did not make me a slave." The
sixteenth of the morning blessings is a declaration of thanksgiving to G-d for
not making us a slave. In this context, "slave" is usually understood
to refer to eved canaani, a non-Jewish slave. As such, all the teachings
derived from the previous blessing ("Who did not make
me a non-Jew"), would apply to this one also. According to the
Torah, a non-Jewish slave of a Jew has a small number of commandments: the seven
Noahide precepts required of every non-Jew, plus a few more. Even a Jewish slave
has significantly fewer mitzvot than a free Jew, since his time is not his own.
Because he is subject to the will of his master, he is exempt from certain commandments
which have to be fulfilled within specific timeframes. In this blessing, we primarily
are expressing gratitude for not being created with a lesser obligation for fulfilling
commandments. Thus, the basic meaning of this blessing is similar to the one that
precedes it as well as the one that follows it. Further analysis requires
moving away from the usual concept of what is a "slave." In Jewish tradition,
a slave is not a person whose body and soul is totally at the mercy of his master.
The Hebrew word for slave, eved, is from the root avad, "work"
or "serve." The Torah delineates many rights for the eved as
well as restrictions upon the master. In the case of a Jewish slave, the rights
granted him by the Torah are so extensive that the Talmud wryly comments "One
who acquires a slave acquires a master!" Although the activities of
a slave are dictated by his master, his thought and emotion are not. His attitude
toward his work is the opposite of his master's. He does not have the motivation
of job satisfaction, his will is solely to discharge his obligation without too
much effort, and to avoid punishment. In this blessing we thank G-d for not making
us a slave so that we have no imposed dichotomy between our actions and our thoughts
and emotions. We are grateful that we do not awake with a slave mentality, which
would limit our inclination to freely express ourselves and to pursue higher goals. At
a deeper level, eved can mean G-d's slave, and is applicable to every Jew:
"The Israelites are my slaves..." (Lev. 25:55). While everyone agrees
it is bad to be the slave of another person, Judaism considers it good to be a
"slave" to G-d. A slave requires neither an explanation nor that a forbidden
act be distasteful in order to refrain from doing it; the knowledge alone that
it is prohibited is in itself sufficient. Even more, we have a basic teaching,
"Do not be like a slave who serves his master in order to receive a reward;
rather, be like a slave who serves his master not in order to receive a reward"
(Avot 1:3). This is a very high level. The pleasure-motivation of such
a person is the pleasure of his "master"; he has made G-d's will his
own. Paradoxically, achieving this absolute level of servitude raises us
to the ultimate pinnacle of freedom, i.e. freedom from enslavement to our own
emotional and physical drives. In the blessing we express gratitude for not having
been created the type of slave who serves only for the sake of personal benefit,
i.e., a slave to one's own desires, while at the same time we maintain the goal
of doing the will of the Creator with total subservience.
Rabbi
Shaul Leiter is the executive
director of Ascent-of-Safed.
This series is translated and adapted from Meah Shearim
and other sources | 
