The Egyptians, faced with starvation, offered themselves as slaves. Yosef, however, accepted only their lands

In our parsha, Yehuda boldly offers himself to the imperious Egyptian viceroy in place of his brother Binyamin, explaining that he vouched for his brother’s return home and hence is personally responsible for his return. To what extent does Yehuda’s promise to his father have halachic validity? 

The Gemara (Bava Basra 173b) learns from Yehuda’s promise that an unconditional guarantor (arev kablan) of a loan has a valid obligation to the lender for the sum of the loan. This is rather different than the very personal nature of Yehuda’s promise (to bring Binyamin home) and the sanction he was willing to suffer (substituing for Binyamin). 

Perhaps surprisingly, in a scenario much more similar to that of Yehuda, where the promise is to bring the debtor to the judgment (similar to a modern bail bondsman), the Rambam (Halvaa 25:14) rules that there is no recourse against the bondsman. Even if he agrees to pay and then fails to deliver, the agreement is an asmachta (a nonbinding conditional agreement) and legally void.

The Raavad, however, does not agree: “However, it seems that one body is surety for the other, until [the lender] reaches a compromise with him.” This approach seems congruent to our Parasha: A guarantor for a sum of money must deliver a sum of money; a guarantor for a person must “deliver” a person – if not the debtor, then himself. 

Later authorities do not accept the Raavad’s position empowering a person to stake his liberty. The reservations the Poskim have about the Raavad’s ruling are one example of the far-reaching disapproval of halacha to any kind of personal servitude. Chazal root this aversion in our collective subjugation to Hashem, in the wake of the Exodus; it is a subjugation that pre-empts any other kind of servitude. 

In particular, the Gemara (Bava Metzia 10a) rules that a worker can not be compelled to work; he is allowed to retract even in the middle of the contract period. The worker is even exempt from the usual sanction dictating that if one side withdraws from an agreement he has “the lower hand” and must compensate the other party. The reason: 

[A]s it is written: “For to Me the children of Israel are slaves; they are My slaves whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 25:55), which indicates: They are My slaves, and not slaves of slaves, i.e., of other Jews.

The Ideal of Human Liberty

The Rema (Choshen Mishpat 333:3) cites the view of the Mordechai, who considered this ethical principle of freedom from servitude so important that he disapproves of any employment contract of more than three years duration, even though the worker is empowered to quit any time. Another example is the halachic ruling whereby a person cannot be compelled to work to pay off a debt (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 97:15); such compulsion would be an excessive infringement on the debtor’s liberty.

The ideal of human liberty applies at some level to all of humankind. We see in our Parasha that the Egyptians, faced with starvation, offered themselves as slaves to Pharaoh: “Let us not perish before your eyes, both we and our land. Take us and our land in exchange for bread, and we with our land will be serfs to Pharaoh” (Bereshis 47:19). But the Ramban points out that Yosef accepted only the land: “So Joseph gained possession of all the farm land of Egypt for Pharaoh”. Regarding the servitude, he merely “removed the population town by town, from one end of Egypt’s border to the other.”

Yosef understood that he had responsibility not only for his own family, but also for the entire Egyptian people, as he states, “Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result—the survival of many people” (Bereshis 50:20). This responsibility included accustoming them – to the best of his ability – to high standards of human dignity and freedom.