Commentary on Parashat Behar-Bechukotai, Leviticus 25:1-27:34
I once heard a leader of a Jewish charitable organization speak to a group of rabbis. She shared a parable about a village in which people find babies mysteriously floating down the river. One by one, villagers rush to save the babies, until one villager realizes that isn’t the best way to address the crisis. She goes upstream to investigate who is launching those babies into the river and solve the problem at its source.
The vision of Behar-Bechukotai is that big picture — the Torah’s grand vision of a mechanism that will create a just society by solving injustice at its source. That mechanism is the unique biblical institution of shmita, the sabbatical year. This revolutionary Torah commandment requires that every seven years the land will lie fallow and enjoy a year of rest and release, just as human beings rest weekly on Shabbat. This is necessary for the land to regenerate and a reminder that we are not owners but merely temporary stewards of our land and property, for as God declares: “The land is Mine; you are but strangers and residents.”
There’s more. After seven cycles of seven years, the fiftieth year is a jubilee year in which servants are freed and foreclosed properties are returned to their original owners. It’s like pushing a reset button on society. In biblical times, the sabbatical year and the jubilee ideally provided a time of renewal and recalibration for both the environment and human society.
The portion opens a bit cryptically by stating that the laws of shmita were given at Mount Sinai. The biblical commentator Rashi asks why this needs to be said — weren’t all the laws of the Torah given at Sinai? Rabbi David Seidenberg, a leading scholar of Jewish environmentalism, explains what makes shmita unique: “Sinai is mentioned [here] because the whole purpose of the Sinai covenant is to create a society capable of observing Shmita.” Shmita, he says, is the ultimate expression of a just and equal society for all people and animals. Its observance represents a kind of return to Eden, when human beings and animals shared the wild food of the earth and humans did not exploit its natural resources. It’s a chance to unwind societal issues and start fresh.
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“In such a society,” Seidenberg writes, “people learn to share their wealth, to nurture the poor alongside everyone, to protect the stranger, to end hunger. In such a society, where we are called to ‘proclaim liberty throughout the land,’ freedom is the true meaning of justice.” As further evidence of its importance, he notes that neglecting to observe shmita is akin to committing idolatry as they are both among the few commandments whose violation leads to exile from the promised land. (Leviticus 26:34)
Curiously, after presenting this grand vision of a just society that continually resets and renews itself, our portion shifts focus to the individual, in particular poor individuals. A key phrase from later verses in the portion is ki yamuch achicha, if your brother is in financial straits. Here Torah calls these individuals in distress — those who have been forced to sell their property, live on charity, or even become indentured servants — our brothers and sisters, members of our family: “If your kin, being in straits, come under your authority, and are held by you (v’hechezakta bo) as though resident aliens, let them live by your side.” (Leviticus 25:35)
The Midrash Sifra (Behar 5:1), plays with the plain meaning of the passive words v’hechezakta bo, “he is held by you,” by rendering them in the active form: “You shall hold him up.” The midrash urges a proactive stance: “Do not leave him by himself so that he comes down in the world until he finally falls altogether, when it will be difficult to give him a lift, but uphold him from the very moment of the failure of his means.”
This is a dizzying journey from a grand societal vision to a deeply individual response to suffering. One might ask which prevails: Is Judaism focused on the grand vision, or individual action? As is often the case, the Jewish response is both/and. My own congregation has two active groups that focus on the mitzvot between people: Social Justice and Community Service. One engages with major national and international issues, what we often call tikkun olam, while the other is focused on chesed, kind and loving deeds directed toward local individuals, whether to support members of the congregation at a time of need, or to volunteer in the community. Together, they represent a holistic Jewish way of engaging with the world.
In essence, this week’s parashah offers a vision of the now-popular slogan “think globally, act locally,” to look to the Torah for the sabbatical and jubilee visions of environmental and social justice, and also to remember the personal, individual responsibility that each of us has to help our sister and brother in need.
