Amram Marrying Yocheved: Resolving the Aunt Prohibition Through Egyptian Slavery Status

The shiur addresses a fundamental difficulty in understanding how Amram, the gadol hador, could have married his aunt Yocheved when such a relationship is explicitly forbidden as an ervah (forbidden sexual relationship). This prohibition applies not only under Torah (תורה) law but even under the seven Noachide laws that bound all of humanity. The question becomes even more acute given Amram's stature as the greatest Torah scholar of his generation. Rabbi Zweig builds his answer on a foundational principle derived from Rashi (רש"י) in Parshas Behar. Rashi explains that a slave owned by a Jew has the legal status of a Jew, while a Jewish slave owned by a non-Jew would have the legal status of a non-Jew. The proof for this comes from the verse "I took you out of Egypt" - Rashi explains that Hashem (ה׳)'s ownership of the Jewish people, established through the Exodus, prevents any Jew from selling himself into slavery to a non-Jew because "shtari kodem" (My contract came first). This reveals that without Hashem's prior claim through Yetzias Mitzrayim, a Jew could indeed sell himself to a non-Jew and would then be bound only by the seven Noachide laws, not the 613 commandments of the Torah.