Study Gittin folio 41B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
בת חורין אי אפשר, שכבר חציו עבד. יבטל? והלא לא נברא העולם אלא לפריה ורביה, שנאמר: ״לא תוהו בראה לשבת יצרה״! אלא מפני תיקון העולם – כופין את רבו ועושה אותו בן חורין, וכותב שטר על חצי דמיו. וחזרו בית הלל להורות כדברי בית שמאי.
It is also not possible for him to marry a free woman, as he is still a half-slave. If you say he should be idle and not marry, but isn’t it true that the world was created only for procreation, as it is stated: “He did not create it to be a waste; He formed it to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18)? Rather, for the betterment of the world his master is forced to make him a freeman, and the slave writes a promissory note accepting his responsibility to pay half his value to his master. And Beit Hillel ultimately retracted their opinion, to rule in accordance with the statement of Beit Shammai, that a half-slave must be set free.
גמ׳ תנו רבנן: המשחרר חצי עבדו, רבי אומר: קנה, וחכמים אומרים: לא קנה.
Talmud: A baraita states: With regard to a master who emancipates only half of his slave, R' Yehuda HaNasi says: He has acquired himself, i.e., the transaction is complete and half of the slave is emancipated, and the Rabbis say: He has not acquired himself.
אמר רבה: מחלוקת בשטר – דרבי סבר: ״והפדה לא נפדתה או חופשה לא נתן לה״ –
Rabba said: Their dispute pertains only to a case where the master emancipated him with a bill of manumission, as R' Yehuda HaNasi holds: In the context of a Jewish man who has sex with a female slave who had been designated to have sex with a Hebrew slave, the Torah writes that neither the Jewish man nor the female slave is liable to receive the death penalty, though the man is liable to bring a guilt-offering. If the woman had been emancipated, she would be a regular married woman, and they would incur the death penalty for their act of sex. In describing the woman in that case, the Torah writes: “And not at all redeemed, nor was freedom given to her” (Leviticus 19:20). This is referring to two methods of emancipating a slave: Redemption via money, in the phrase: “And not at all redeemed,” and emancipation via a bill of manumission, in the phrase: “Nor was freedom given her.”