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Thought for the Day: Shelo Asani Eved

First I need to correct an error from yesterday, the tanna d'vei eliyahu says that a person who increases acts of loving kindness puts shalom in his body.  Same vort, but I wanted the quote more accurate.

Second, I have neglected to mention that inspiration for many of these TODs is from the sefer "Achas Sha'alti" by Sha'altiel Meir Cohen, a young talmid chocham who was selling his sefer (two volume set on t'fila) at the kosel when I was there a few years ago.

Of the three "thank you for not make me a ___", only one has the possibility of being by choice, an eved (k'na'ani); a non-Jew who chooses to enslave himself to a Jew rather than convert.  Why would a person choose that?  An eved has mitzvos, but is exempt from all time-bound positive mitzvos.  A Jewish woman is exempt from time bound positive mitzvos because of specific decree; as evidenced by her declaration thanking HaShem for making her according to His will.  But an eved?  He chose that; he wants the reward of doing mitzvos without the effort having to change himself to build a relationship with HaShem.
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