…of Behar with its concern for economic justice, debt relief, welfare and humane working conditions, speaks with undiminished power to the problems of a global economy. To be sure, there is no direct inference to be made from the Torah to contemporary politics. Jews have identified with all shades of the political spectrum: from Trotsky to Milton Friedman, from socialism…
…nothing surer: the rich get rich and the poor get poorer.” It is to this phenomenon that the social legislation of Behar is addressed. Leviticus 25 sets out a number of laws whose aim is to correct the tendency toward radical and ever-increasing inequality that result from the unfettered play of free market economics. So we have the sabbatical year…
The book of Vayikra draws to a close by outlining the blessings that will follow if the people are faithful to their covenant with God. Then it describes the curses that will befall them if they are not. The general principle is clear. In biblical times, the fate of the nation mirrored the conduct of the nation. If people behaved…
…rain, and the renewal of nature. One of the most beautiful consequences of the chronological imagination – seen clearly in parshat Behar – is its ability to reconcile the real with the ideal. History is full of ideal worlds. We call them utopias, a word that means “no place,” because no utopia has ever happened. Torah Kohanim has a different,…
…people to be ambassadors as well. Emor: On Not Being Afraid of Greatness The leadership challenge of Parshat Behar is: count the years, not the days. Keep faith with the past but keep your eyes firmly fixed on the future. Behar: Think Long That is what I mean by the strange, seemingly self-contradictory idea I have argued throughout these essays:…
A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible I Believe is a personal and intimate demonstration of how Rabbi Sacks came to see the world through listening attentively to the Torah and its message for the present and all times. This is the latest book in the Covenant & Conversation series of themed books, written by Rabbi Sacks on the weekly Torah portion. The…
The book of Vayikra ends with one of the most terrifying passages in literature. It describes what will happen to the Israelites if, having made their covenant with God, they break its terms: “If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile…
…Torah, contains in parshat Behar and in Sefer Devarim, the world’s first environmental legislation. When the big issue of international debt came up towards the millennium in the late 1990s, it was the Vatican, it was the United Nations, sorry, and the World Bank or the IMF or what have you, that came up with this campaign for international debt…
…at stake when the Torah establishes its ideal of a free society, as God says, again in Parshat Behar, Vayikra chapter 25, Ki li bnei yisrael avadim, avadei hame. “The children of Israel are My servants.” Said the Rabbis, quite correctly, velo avadim le’avadim, “and not servants to other servants.” In other words, God must militate against human slavery because…
…University, his doctorate in Education from the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University, and his Juris Doctor (JD) from Fordham Law School. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Leba, and their four children. < Back to The Sacks Scholars More from Rabbi Dr. Seth Grauer Holy Times: Behar, Covenant & Conversation, the Family Edition…