B’har/Bchukotai 2010

We have counted seven days. The seventh has arrived and we sanctify the day and make it holy. In Judaism, the number seven indicates completeness. The seven days of the week, the seven days of Passover, the seven blessings of a wedding, which are repeated for seven days, seven heavens, the שבעת מינים, the seven species native to Israel, שבעה, the seven days of mourning, and so on. 

There are also some special eights. The eight days of Sukkot, for example, which are actually seven plus one. Completeness and more than completeness. The ברית מילה, which takes place after a baby boy has lived one complete week. We are still in the midst of counting the Omer. When we count the Omer, as I mentioned last week, it is seven sevens, seven weeks of seven days each, and on the day after the seventh seven, the fiftieth day, we will have Shavuot, which means ‘Weeks,’ or ‘Sevens.’

It is no coincidence that this week’s parasha, B’har, is always read during the Omer. In this parasha we are instructed to count seven sevens of years. Every seventh year is a shmittah year, in which we are instructed to let our lands lie fallow. The year after the seventh shmittah, the seventh seventh year, which is the fiftieth, is the יובל, the Jubilee year.

On the Jubilee year all debts are remitted, all slaves go free, and all land reverts back to the original owners. As is inscribed on the Liberty Bell, וְקִדַּשְׁתֶּם אֵת שְׁנַת הַחֲמִשִּׁים שָׁנָה וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ לְכָל־יֹשְׁבֶיהָ You shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land.

So in what sense is the year after the seventh seventh year holy? It is a year devoted to Gd, a year in which the farmer does not reap or sow. The year is separate from an ordinary one in that sense, but no different from the shmittah year. The biggest difference is the freedom of all slaves and the return of all land that has been purchased.

Those two things have a single meaning, a single cause, and their purpose is to remind us of the same thing: as it is written in Psalm 24, לַײַ הָאָרֶץ וּמְלוֹאָהּ תֵּבֵל וְישְׁבֵי בָהּ The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; The earth, and those that dwell upon her.

The earth is the Lord’s. It is not ours. We can buy land and sell land, but its like two children at a museum, saying, ‘this painting is mine and that one will be yours.’ You can say it, and if everyone is playing by those rules, then it is as if that painting does belong to this child or that, but when they leave the museum, they can’t take the painting home with them.

The Jubilee year is when the museum closes, when all the children have to admit that they do not really own the paintings. We must admit that we do not own the land, and we return to the possession that Gd assigned to us when we entered the land. And if that is true of land, how much more so is it true of human beings, made בצלם אלוקים? We cannot buy or sell human beings, because we do not own them. 

There is a catch in the proclamation of freedom. In the country, all land is released in the Jubilee year. However, in the city, if you sell your land, it may be redeemed by you or your relative within one year. If you do not redeem it within one year, it is beyond redemption. It will not be released in the Jubilee year.

I think this is a warning. Human beings are made בצלם אלוקים, but if we go too far from our Creator, we can reach a point past which there is no redemption. We cannot be slaves unless we agree to be slaves. I don’t mean literal slaves. I mean slaves to addiction, slaves to anger, slaves to violence, slaves to fear, slaves to money, slaves to a view of the world which is only secular... As Rabbi Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan, has said, you gotta serve somebody. Serve Gd, and freedom will be proclaimed throughout the land. Serve Gd, and you will never be a permanent slave to anyone else.

Work for the real owner of the land, the real owner of your soul, and the wages are high. The work is not easy, but the wages are high. Serve Gd, and you will always be redeemable. 

We no longer keep the Jubilee years, but may we be jubilant! We ask Gd to bless us with redemption, with a year of holiness, a year of liberty, a year of peace.