{"id":51446,"date":"2019-03-17T17:36:53","date_gmt":"2019-03-17T15:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=51446"},"modified":"2022-10-06T16:25:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T13:25:08","slug":"we-are-runaway-slaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/we-are-runaway-slaves\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are Runaway Slaves!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[391,438],"acf":{"old_id":"51446","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":37918,"related_cahpter":"176","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"And with more slaves today in the world than ever before - what is our obligation?","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It seems fair to say that on a day-to-day basis many of us in the Western world take our freedoms for granted. Yet shocking as it is, more than twenty-million people around the world are enslaved to this very day. In fact, according to many activists, there are more people in slavery today than at any other time in human history (see <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.freetheslaves.net\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Slavery Today<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). What are we to make of this horror, and how ought we respond to it? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the ancient Near East, laws and international treaties commonly forbade harboring fugitive slaves. One who harbored a fleeing slave was also subject to grave penalty. Deuteronomy offers a stark alternative: \u201cYou shall not hand over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. He shall live with you in any place he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not oppress him\u201d (Deut 23:16-17). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deuteronomy teaches that the fugitive slave may dwell in any place he chooses. The idea of choosing a place is crucial to Deuteronomy: God is repeatedly described as choosing one central place. This occurs no fewer than eighteen times in Deuteronomy; seventeen of them refer to God\u2019s choosing a habitation for God\u2019s name. Strikingly, the verses dealing with the runaway slave are the only instance in Deuteronomy in which these terms are used for anyone other than God. Moreover, the text insists that the slave is to dwell \u201cin your midst\u201d\u2014again, just as God does (cf. 6:15; 7:21).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The people of Israel are themselves a nation of runaway slaves worshiping a God who liberates slaves.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just as the Israelites are repeatedly taught that because they were strangers in the land of Egypt, they must not oppress the stranger (Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33), here they are instructed (though the point is not made explicit) that because they were runaway slaves, they must not oppress slaves in flight, and must open their hearts and their land to them. The Hebrew word our translation renders as \u201cseeks refuge\u201d is <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yinatzel<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a verb also used to describe God\u2019s delivering Israel from bondage. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In an age when Jews have access to political and economic power in ways our ancestors could not even have dreamed of, surely we ought to be at the forefront of contemporary movements for abolition and liberation. Where slavery is concerned, Deuteronomy was enormously radical in its time; to take its message seriously is to be enormously radical in our own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image by: orythys from Pixabay<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":51447,"id":51447,"title":"dt23-slavery","filename":"dt23-slavery-1.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/we-are-runaway-slaves\/dt23-slavery\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"dt23-slavery","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":51446,"date":"2019-03-17 15:36:36","modified":"2022-04-21 10:58:26","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1245,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-300x195.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":195,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-768x498.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":498,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-1024x664.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":664,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":996,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1245,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-1200x778.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":778,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-648x420.jpg","home_baner-width":648,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"We Are Runaway Slaves!","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"And with more slaves today in the world than ever before - what is our obligation?","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":51447,"id":51447,"title":"dt23-slavery","filename":"dt23-slavery-1.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/we-are-runaway-slaves\/dt23-slavery\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"dt23-slavery","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":51446,"date":"2019-03-17 15:36:36","modified":"2022-04-21 10:58:26","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1245,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-300x195.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":195,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-768x498.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":498,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-1024x664.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":664,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":996,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1245,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-1200x778.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":778,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt23-slavery-1-648x420.jpg","home_baner-width":648,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108424,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51446\/revisions\/108424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}