Wyjścia 21:6 Komentarz: Rashi, Chizkuni, Da'at Zekenim & Ramban

אל האלהים means to the court. He (the slave) should take counsel with his vendors (the court) because it was they who sold him to him (the master) (Mekhilta).

אל הדלת או אל המזוזה, “against the door or doorpost of the courthouse; we find an example of this in Deuteronomy 17,5: והוצאת את האיש ההוא אל שעריך, “you are to take out that man to your gates, (court);” This procedure is designed to give publicity to the irrational behaviour of this Jewish “slave;” let all the people passing the courthouse know who it is that has preferred life as a slave with a gentile slave to life as a free Israelite. He will have no chance to escape this status before the next Jubilee year.

ורצע אדוניו את אזנו במרצע, “his master must pierce his ear with an awl;” why did the Torah choose the awl as the tool with which to pierce this servant’s ear? The numerical value of the letters in the word מרצע equals 400. It is to remind that servant that seeing that G–d had redeemed the Jewish people from 400 years of slavery, it is unbelievable that he should choose being enslaved to a human master voluntarily. G–d had stated categorically in Leviticus 25,55 כי לי בני ישראל עבדים, “for the Children of Israel are meant to be bound by a master- servant relationship only with their G–d,” not with any human being. If this man chooses to become indentured to a human master he deserves to be punished physically. (Talmud, tractate Kiddushin, folio 22, and Tossaphot on that folio.

אל הדלת או אל המזוזה TO THE DOOR OR TO THE DOORPOST — From this statement you might think that the doorpost is also a proper thing upon which the servant’s ear may be pierced! Scripture, however, states, (Deuteronomy 15:17) “[Then thou shalt take an awl], and thrust it through his ear and into the door” — into the door but not into the doorpost. If this be so, what is the purpose of Scripture stating here “[to the door] or to the doorpost”? By this juxtaposition it only compares the door with the doorpost. What is the characteristic of the doorpost? It is something perpendicular! So, too, the door must during the act of performation be in a perpendicular position (on its hinges), not detached as, for instance, lying on the ground (Mekhilta; Kiddushin 22b).