About this episode
Rav said that one who purchases a Canaanite slave from a gentile does not yet have full rights to the slave and therefore if the slave goes to a mikveh for the sake of converting, he is considered a Jew and is freed from slavery. Why? A contradiction is brought, and is resolved. Rav Avia limits this to exclude a case where one purchases the slave directly from the slave himself, but his limitation is questioned. A Canaanite slave needs to go in a mikveh and is circumcised as he becomes part of the household of the Jewish owner. In order to prevent the slave from releasing himself during the process of going to the mikveh, Shmuel suggests doing that when putting him in the mikveh, one needs to make sure to make it clear that there is an owner/slave relationship. When Rabbi Chiya bar Abba came to a particular city, he saw a number of things that people were not doing properly. They had Jewish women impregnated by men who had become circumcised to convert but had not yet gone to the mikveh, Jews were drinking wine poured by gentiles and eating lupines cooked by gentiles. After consulting with Rabbi Yochanan, he reprimanded the people for all these actions. What was problematic about each of them? There is a three-way debate regarding partial acts of conversion – only circumcision, only mikveh – is one considered converted or not? What are the reasons for each opinion? By which opinion do we hold?