The Temple Treasurer
During Temple times, the Temple’s treasury (Hekdesh) was allowed to own Canaanite slaves, just as a private individual could. Therefore, we would have expected that just as a slave owned by a private individual could buy his freedom from his master, so too a slave owned by the Temple treasury could pay the treasurer (gizbar) and buy his freedom.
However, this is not the case. The treasurer of the Temple may not grant a slave release. Rather, he must sell the slave to a private individual. The slave can then buy his freedom from the new owner (Gittin 38b). Why is the treasurer of the Temple empowered to deal with all monetary matters, but not empowered to free a slave?
Rashi explains that the relationship of the Temple to a slave is different from that of a private individual to a slave. The Temple treasury does not actually acquire the body of the slave (kinyan ha-guf), but only his monetary value (kinyan damim). Since the treasury does not own the slave’s body, it cannot free him. The Meiri offers a different explanation. The reason the treasurer cannot free the slave is because only the slave’s owner can free him, and he is not the slave’s owner. The true owner of Hekdesh is the Almighty Himself, while the treasurer is just a functionary.
Tosafot explains that if we give the treasurer the power to sell a slave, some might suspect him of not being sufficiently careful with Hekdesh assets. However, this interpretation is a bit surprising, as there is a principle that we trust the treasurers of Hekdesh to be acting faithfully. If we trust them with all other monetary matters, why should freeing slaves be any different? The reason may be as follows. We trust the treasurers implicitly as far as straight monetary matters are concerned. However, when it comes to freeing a slave – granting liberty to a human being – there are emotional and ideological concerns that may come into play. People might suspect that the treasurer’s altruistic wish to free a slave would lead him to do something disadvantageous to Hekdesh, for example accepting a lower price than he should for the slave.