Rabbi Abrams Blog

In a world bombarding us with advertisements, media & information, it's easy to miss important things.  This is why I write provocative subject lines and titles to my blog.  To catch people's attention. Last week, I attempted to communicate a deep idea about how the Torah concept of slavery can be applied in today's day and age.  To read the email, click  here .   I'd like to share some of the feedback I received.  Most of it was positive, but one person requested clarification, and another one felt it was offensive.   Here is one of the responses, " That is a brilliant message, Rabbi! Unconventional on its face but very poignant when your point is understood. It mirrors the experience of my son. His 10 year addiction was abruptly ended through “slavery” in the form of the Salvation Army’s 6 month residential Adult Recovery Program. It probably saved his life and definitely turned his life around. Clean and sober for about 10 years now."   Another fellow

As an American, the idea that Torah condones slavery is pretty unsettling.  To make matters worse, we believe that when Moshiach comes, we'll be reverting to all the rules of Torah.  How could it be that after so many centuries of progress, we're waiting for the day we can return to the dark ages and re-institute slavery?   The answer must be that the ugly slavery and segregation we're taught about in school has nothing to do with the Torah slavery.  After years of thinking about it, I think I finally have an answer, and it was inspired by a druggie.  I've had the opportunity to help quite a few addicts and their families.  It's so sad to see beautiful people, who genuinely want to change and straighten their lives out, but simply cannot help themselves.  Drug rehabs have pathetically low success rates, and their failure might just be in that their clients are "free" citizens.  Maybe, the Torah's kind of slavery could solve their problems! First of all