Likewise to Your Maidservant and the Timing of His Words

"And to your maidservant you shall do likewise" (Deuteronomy 15:17). Scripture compared her to the pierced servant: just as the pierced servant does not serve the son nor the daughter, and so on. But this is needed for what is taught: "And to your maidservant you shall do likewise" - to grant her a severance gift. Or is it perhaps only for piercing? When it says, "But if the servant plainly says" (Exodus 21:5) - the servant, and not the Hebrew maidservant. How then do I uphold "And to your maidservant you shall do likewise"? To grant her a severance gift. If so, let the verse write "And to your maidservant likewise"; what is "you shall do"? Learn from it two things. "But if he plainly says" - until he says and repeats. If he said at the beginning of the six years but did not say at the end of the six years, he is not pierced, as it is said, "I will not go out free" - until he says at the time of going out. If he said at the end of the six years but did not say at the beginning of the six years, he is not pierced, as it is said, "But if the servant plainly says" - while he is a servant. The Master said: at the beginning of the six years. It might enter your mind that this means literally the beginning of the six years; but derive it otherwise, for we require "I love my wife," and he does not yet have a wife and children. And further, is he not a servant during the six years? The last day is called the end of the six years, and all that day he is a servant. Rava said: at the beginning of the last perutah's worth, at the end of the last perutah's worth. And this is what it means: if he said at the beginning of the six years, before the start of the last perutah's worth, when he already has a wife and children, but did not say at the end of the six years, after the last perutah's worth had begun, he is not pierced, even if he said and repeated, as it is written, "I will not go out" - close to going out, and as long as a full perutah's worth remains upon him he is not close to going out. If he said and repeated at the end of the last perutah's worth, he is not pierced, as it is said, "But if the servant plainly says" - until he says it while he is a servant.