Two Minute Torah Podcast

B'Har 5768 by Marc Neiwirth

Shalom, my name is Marc Neiwirth, Executive Director of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, Ohio. Welcome to KOACH's Two-Minute Torah; a project of the College Department of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

This week's parasha is Behar. The area that we will be discussing is the Shemita year. Ancient Israelite society was an agrarian society, meaning that most people were involved in farming. Just as we work for six days and rest on the seventh, so we work the fields for six years and let them rest on the seventh.

In the Etz Chaim chumash, an interesting question is presented here. Why were these laws given to the Children of Israel in the desert, way before they ever entered the land of Israel? Perhaps because at Sinai no one owned any land yet, and no one could object that the law deprived people of what they had worked to acquire. Everyone started out on an equal footing not owning any property.

We tend to think that when we buy property we own it exclusively. Observance of the Shemita year recognizes that God is the ultimate owner of the land. This recognition infuses holiness and purpose into not only our work week, with Shabbat being our day of rest, but into our work year, with Shemita being our year of rest.

The Torah then goes on to count off a series of seven periods of seven years, totaling forty-nine years; and, in the year after that, the fiftieth year, a “yovel,” a jubilee is declared. During this jubilee year, which is heralded with a sounding of the shofar, all debts are cancelled, and periods of personal servitude were nullified.

In conclusion, each type of cycle of seven was designed to liberate: Shabbat to liberate us from our weekly work, Shemita to liberate the land from continuous planting, and Yovel, the jubilee, to liberate us from economic servitude, whether it be of money or of person.