…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…
…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…
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:…
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…
…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…
…the quote from Parashat Behar, “Ukratem d’ror ba’aretz l’chol yoshveha” (Leviticus 25:9), proclaim liberty to the land and the inhabitants thereof. All the way through, they’re quoting Tanach. And when the first movement for African-Americans starts, they’re singing, “Go down, Moses, to Egypt’s land and tell old Pharaoh to let My people go.” When Martin Luther King reaches the crescendo on…
…have to live in houses to feel secure. I’m happy to live in succot, my animals live in succot, I’m happy to live there. What does God say in parshas Behar? When you come to the land, the Land, you will never own it in perpetuity. Why? Ki li ha’aretz ki geirim vetoshavim atem imadi [Vayikra 25:23] “You are mere…
…a whole. That is what the Jewish calendar is about. It is why chapter 23, in this week’s parsha, is so fundamental to the continued vitality of the Jewish people. It sets out a weekly, monthly and yearly schedule of sacred times. This is continued and extended in Parshat Behar to seven- and fifty-year schedules. The Torah forces us to…