A Thought on the Parsha
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This week, with the reading of Behar-Bichukotai, we end the book of Vayikra. The book of Vayikra is often thought of as devoted entirely to sacrifices or, a little more broadly, to the world of the kohanim - sacrifices and tumah vi'tahara, purity and impurity - and has thus also been called Torat Kohanim, the Torah of the Priests. However, this only described the first half of Vayikra. Beginning with Achrei Mot, the Torah turns to the lives of the entire people, and delineates the prohibitions of idolatry and forbidden sexual relationships, framed in terms of tumah and taharah.
This relocating of presumably Temple-centric concepts to the
normal lives of the people is completed in the parasha of Kedoshim,
where the entire people is called upon to be kadosh, to be holy just as God is holy. The concept
of kedusha, we are told, is not limited to the
Temple. It is a concept that must guide our lives in all its dimensions, and
thus the parasha lays out a wide and diverse array of mitzvot for our
lives outside of the Temple, mitzvot which allow us to achieve lives of kedusha. God
had us build a Mishkan so that God could dwell in our midst, but the purpose of
God dwelling in our midst is not to find God only in the Mishkan, but to take
the encounter of God in the Mishkan, and to bring it out of the Mishkan and
into all aspects of our lives.
Until now, the life of kedusha outside the Temple is defined by a
life of mitzvot observance in general, and of the observance of Shabbat
in particular. Shabbat serves as the counterpart to Mikdash. Mikdash is the holiness of space, and Shabbat
is holiness of time. Thus, Shabbat and Mikdash
are regularly juxtaposed in the Torah. And of the two, it is the kedusha of Shabbat that is greater. Shabbat precedes Mikdash chronologically - it
existed at the beginning of Creation and was commanded even before the
revelation at Har Sinai - and its sanctity cannot be violated even for the sake
of the construction of the Mikdash. One aspect of its greater importance
undoubtedly lies in this - that the kedusha of
Shabbat applies to all - men and women, kohanim and Yisraelim - and at all times and at all places. It is the regular, ongoing, experience
of kedusha, of veshakhanti bi'tokham, of "I will dwell in their
midst", that exists in our lives.
Shabbat is kedusha outside
of the Temple for the individual and the community, but it still falls short of
a full life of kedusha. It is only in parashat Behar,
that the kedusha of Shabbat becomes the basis for
structuring the entire society.
The mitzvah of shmitta,
called here Shi'vi'it, the Seventh, is described in the
opening section of the parasha as a “Shabbat for the land.” The Torah
underscores this point, repeating the word "shabbat" seven (!) times
in the opening section, and then commanding the mitzvah of the yovel, after
seven cycles of shmitta - it is a Shabbat of the Shabbats.
The use of the term "Shabbat" for the Sabbatical Year demands
attention. It is the concept of kedusha, the concept of Shabbat, applied to the
land and to the entire existence of the people as a nation. The Torah spells
out in Bichukotai the consequences for not observing the Shabbat of the land:
destruction of the Temple and exile from the land. The loss of these two is effectively the
destruction of us as a nation. And, indeed, for two thousand years, from the
destruction of the Temple and the exile until the establishment of the modern
State of Israel, we have ceased to exist as a nation. We continued to exist as
a people, as a religion, but we were not a nation.
Shmitta, then, is kedusha applied
on the national level,; it is the structuring of our national identity on the
principle of kedusha. What does that mean? The refrain of
the Torah in our parsha is "For the land is Mine, for you are
strangers and sojourners with Me." (Vayikra 25:23). On the individual and
communal level, the refrain from work one day a week, on Shabbat, structures
our life so that it is not just about work, creating, and possessing. Our work
takes place in a larger context, in a frame of kedusha, and it must
serve a larger purpose. On the societal level, our refraining from working the
land on year out of seven, on Shmitta, structures our society so that its goals
and institutions are not - cannot - be about the acquisition of wealth and the exploiting
of the land.
A society that keeps the shmitta understands
that the land is not the owner’s to dispose of how they please, and works to
protect its natural resources. A society that keeps the Shmitta understands
that our energies cannot be devoted to the massing of unlimited wealth, for
property will revert to its original owners every 50 years. A society that
keeps the Shmitta understands
that other human beings are not put on Earth for us to maximally exploit them
to our benefit, for humans are not made to serve others, but to serve God. The mitzvot
of lending without interest also appear in this parasha, because a
society that keeps these laws understands that our money is given to us not for
our enrichment at the expense of others, but that our money, our wealth, and
the land itself is given to us by God to serve God and to help people. A
society that keeps Shmitta understands that everyone must be cared
for, that everyone lives and thrives: "And you will strengthen him - the
stranger and the sojourner - and he will live with you" (Vayikra 25:35) .
Such a society structures its goals and institutions so that what it values is
not wealth and possessions, but serving others and serving God.
Until now, we as a people have done very well in the observance
of Shabbat and mitzvot. We have done less well in living lives ofkedusha. Our
lives of mitzvot often are ones of technical observance, and we lost
sight of the values that underlie the mitzvot. We keep the Shabbat
meticulously, but this often does not translate into a reframing of our working
lives in a way that they serve a higher purpose. And, most significantly, we
have never really structured a society around the principles of Shmitta. In
short, we have never given Shmitta a chance. What would it mean to
structure a society around principles and goals that are profoundly different
from those of the society in which live, in which we have always lived? What
would it mean if our financial, industrial, legal, and commercial institutions
were structured around the principles of Shmitta?
It is hard to imagine how we can begin to realize such a
restructuring of society, but there are places we can start. Not, perhaps, in
our secular institutions, but in our Jewish ones. Over 100 years ago, one of
the most important institutions for the immigrant Jewish communities in the
United States was the Hebrew Free Loan Society. Built on the principles of our parasha,
this institution realized the primary responsibility of the Jewish community to
support its members, and to do so in ways that made them productive members of
society. Through its membership-based structure, the reciprocity that it
engendered, and the embracing of the value of communal responsibility, not only
were individuals helped, but the entire community was strengthened. Today, we
do not have such communal institutions. And often the communal religious
institutions that we do have - synagogues and Jewish schools - more buy into
the values of academic achievement, professional achievement, earning potential,
and amassed wealth - that are those of the secular society than they attempt to
redirect our communal values to those of the Torah and those embodied by Shmitta.
On this Shabbat, let us think how in our individual lives we can
bring the kedusha of
Shabbat into the week, to structure our working week to serve a higher purpose.
And let us think how we can bring the kedusha of Shi'vi'it into
our society - how we can work without Jewish institutions so that they embrace
and communicate the values of a society that serves a higher purpose, that
reaches for kedusha.
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