When you purchase a Jewish slave, he shall work for six years and on the seventh go out to freedom... (21:2)
There one was a wealthy chasid who owned numerous properties that he rented out to tenants. One of his tenants was a poor man who had not paid his rent in months, and he wished to evict this tenant.
This chasid’s rebbe, the Chidushei Harim zy”a, asked to see him. When he arrived, the Chidushei Harim asked him, “How could you throw a Jew out of his home?”
The wealthy man answered, “Why do I have to support him by myself? If he is too poor to pay rent, then the community should collect for him. Why do I have to pay for his debts?”
The Rebbe replied, “Chazal say (Gittin 41A) that if someone is a half-slave, half-free man (he was owned by two owners and one freed him, leaving him half-owned by the other), we force the remaining owner to free him so that he should be able to marry a free woman. We may ask why he has to free his slave. Why does he have to lose out so that this slave should be able to get married?
“The answer is that since this man is his slave, he is responsible for him. So too, if Hashem sent this poor man to you, it is up to you to take care of his problems.”
