The Reset Button: Behar
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Sometimes it seems that things go out of control. No sooner are we out of one situation than another comes up. Pandemic is quickly followed by war; one horrific shooting comes on the heels of another. Not to complain, but have you noticed gas prices? And baby formula shortage??? Tempers flare and misunderstandings turn into squabbles; friends get dropped; families are torn apart.
Where is the stop and reset button for heaven’s sake?
This week’s Torah portion, Behar (“At the Mountain,” Leviticus 25:1-26:2) seems to anticipate our question, offering us exactly that: a reset button: A fiftieth year jubilee. Every fifty years everything returns to “normal.” Families reunite; everyone comes home again, turning to one another with an outstretched hand and warm embrace. Loans are forgiven, slaves are set free. Every seven years (and then, in addition, on the fiftieth) even the land is given a year off: No cultivation, no reaping of the aftergrowth of the harvest: The abundance is returned whence it came—to enrich the earth.
The highest principle of our Republic is found in this unmatched portion (Lev. 25:10): “Proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants.” It’s hard to compete with this lofty idea.
However, what Moses could see from the mountaintop was an idealized vision, not easy to accomplish. It would require that we find humility and compassion within us, not only resentment and anger.
Like all ideas of perfection, this one too may seem impossible. Who in their right mind would be willing to release their slaves? Who would leave their land untended and permit wild animals to forage in it? Where would banks and the market be if loans were forgiven every fifty years? It would be chaos!
But the Torah anticipates this too and has some suggestions, such as that the value of the land should not be measured by some imaginary matrix, but rather by how many years are left before the Jubilee year, when the property would return to its original owner. The value of an orchard or vineyard should be calculated not only by how much fruit it may yield, but also by how many harvests are yet to come before the land is permitted to rest.
The closer you get to the Jubilee Year, so does the retail value decrease. No price gouging permitted.
If all this feels so contrary to human nature, perhaps it’s because we as a society have become arrogant, proud with our possessions and always wanting more. Our biggest need has become not to fit in, but rather to dominate; not merely to blend harmoniously with nature and all life, but rather to control and repress. Winner takes all.
Maybe that’s why this portion is so important. Its task is to remind us of the vision of the way things should be, and how to get there.
The lesson of this portion is that our purpose here on earth is to remind us of our own value; we cannot consider ourselves so important that we allow our egos to get out of hand. We do not own and master land, people or animals. Rather, we are here to cultivate the earth, not deplete it. To care for one another, not to hurt with rocks or words, but rather to care for all those who dwell on it. This, Behar tells us, is the way to set things right once again, to ensure that things go well again.
It’s time to push the reset button, and it starts with ourselves.
© 2022 by Boaz D. Heilman
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