Behar
The book of Vayikra, is a manual for bringing holiness into our lives, through the process of distinction and limitation. Time is sanctified by distinguishing Shabbat and festivals and limiting our creative activity on those days.
The Temple is sanctified by those not in a state of purity refraining from entering its portals. People themselves are sanctified by the separation of the Cohanim, who are subject to particular restrictions in their lives, such as avoiding any contact with the dead.
Now, in the penultimate parasha of Behar, the land of Israel itself reaches holiness through a similar process. For six years, man is able to work and exploit the land, but every seventh year is a Shemitta, when the land must lie fallow and be “holy for God”. In addition, every fifty years marks a “Yovel” (Jubilee) year, when again the land must not only rest, but landholdings must return to the ownership of the family that had possession at the time of the previous Yovel.
This institution of the Yovel, and the further laws that are described in this parasha, show that the Torah’s concern is far more than the letting the land recover its fertility – it is the creation of a just society. The re-possession of family estates ensures that no family is able to build up large holdings of land over generations and become feudal-style landlords. Furthermore, when any Jew is forced to sell their land, even between one Yovel and the next, their relatives are obliged to try to buy it back for them so that they can re-possess it as soon as possible. Fraud in business or other dealings is forbidden. Lending money on interest is prohibited, ensuring that capital must work together with labour to make, and share, profits.
The Torah concludes the section dealing with the Shemitta and Yovel with the reminder that the land belongs to God, and its inhabitants are merely “strangers and dwellers” on it. The passage prescribing the social obligations end with the explanation that the Jewish people are all “slaves to God”. With this awareness that neither the land nor our fellows are ours to exploit, we bring holiness to our land and to our society.
Rabbi James Kennard is Principal of Mount Scopus College, Melbourne.
