Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary

Copyright Neal Joseph Loevinger 2010

Torah Portion: Behar-Bechukotai

Behar-Bechukotai is a double portion which concludes the book of Vayikra/Leviticus. Behar begins with the Shmitta, or Sabbatical year, and includes laws of helping others and debt repayment. Bechukotai is difficult; it contains a long series of blessings and curses related to covenant.

Shalom one and all!

We’re delighted to be working on this week’s drasha before the “OMG it’s almost Shabbat” timezone- let’s hope this trend continues !

Continuing with our exploration of the connections between the Torah portion and our various prayer services, this week we note that the practice of blowing the shofar is linked to the Yovel or Jubilee year, in which servants are released, debts are forgiven and land is returned to its original owners:

“Then you shall sound the shofar loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month — the Day of Atonement — you shall have the shofar sounded throughout your land  and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. . . ” (Vayikra 25:9-10)

Now, most readers of this commentary know that the shofar is associated with Rosh Hashanah , but actually, the Torah doesn’t tell us directly to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Rather, the Torah (in Vayikra 23:24) speaks only of teruah, the “sounding,” on Rosh Hashanah. The ancient rabbis note that in the verse above, teruah and shofar show up in the same verse, and they thus deduce that since the Yovel proclamation has a shofar on Yom Kippur, all the “soundings” of the month must be the same, so we must blow a shofar on Rosh Hashanah, too.

So when we hear the shofar on the New Year, one association is Yovel, the year of freedom, equality, and justice. One commentary links teruah with re’ut, or friendship, implying that in the Yovel year, all the social tension caused by economic struggles is relieved when society “resets” itself by forgiving debts and letting servants go free.* Freedom was proclaimed for servant and master alike (“all of its inhabitants”), reminding us that we can be enslaved by our possessions, and true freedom requires putting material desires into the context of an ethical and compassionate life.

That’s why the linking of teruah– shofar sounding- and re’ut, friendship- is so profound. It reminds us that what sets us free is focusing on people, not on objects; we can never be fully free to become loving friends if we are oriented more towards ownership of things than service to others. When we sound the shofar for the new year- and, as many synagogues do, every Rosh Hodesh, or new moon- we challenge ourselves to be released from relationships constrained by the illusion of ownership and control. Getting more stuff doesn’t make us more free; being a better friend and more loving human being is our true calling.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

P.S.- This is cool. My friend Rabbi Eli Garfinkel made an iPod/ iPad application for learning Torah trope. Check it out.

* Quoted in Y. Nachshoni, Studies in the Weekly Parashah.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Behar

This week we’re reading the Torah portion Behar, which deals with
land, servants and money- always interesting topics. Many of the laws
in Behar only apply in the land of Israel but there is one law which
clearly articulates a permanent ethic of honest business dealings:

” When you sell property to your neighbor, or buy any from your
neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. . . . Do not wrong one
another, but fear your God; for I the Lord am your God.” (Vayikra/
Leviticus 25:14 & 17)

The ancient rabbis interpreted the “wronging” of each other that could
occur during buying and selling to refer to various forms of verbal
deception, including overstating an item’s worth by more than
one-sixth or asking about prices with no intention of buying [thus
deceiving the seller.] The sages also included verbal harassment,
dishonesty or manipulation in their interpretation of these verses.

The general idea here is that people have a right to make an honest
living buying and selling legitimately acquired property, but they
should not do so using tactics which would cause anger, conflict or
wasting another person’s time. We might think that one should be free
to charge whatever one likes for an item- after all, it’s a “free
market”- but there are always inequalities of information which give
one party an advantage, which the ancient rabbis direct us not to
exploit. (Just ask yourself how you feel after someone has taken
advantage of you. How could a compassionate person do that to someone
else?)

Furthermore, the phenomenon of “deception with words” is quite real in
the Internet age, wherein it’s easy to look at products in a local
store and then buy them cheaper online. I personally know of several
small business owners who have given up their specialty shops because
of this- and I’m sure I’ve done it myself. The point is not that we
shouldn’t “comparison shop,” the point is that if you <know> you’re
not going to buy something, then it’s a deceptive act to inquire about
it, because the seller thinks a sale could happen.

These are just two examples of the Torah’s ethic of honesty and
integrity as applied to all aspects of our lives; we can’t be pious in
shul and sharks in the market. I’d say it’s precisely in those areas
where it’s most tempting to cut corners that Jewish law provides the
most guidance; money flows in and out of our hands and every day we
must consider how we act in financial transactions.

On a deeper level, honesty and integrity in business come from
striving to see each person as made in the image of God, and thus
possessing rights and dignity. It’s a mitzvah to be honest in
financial matters because there’s always another human soul on the
other end of the transaction. In any exchange, a relationship is
formed, however brief, which can be one which builds bonds of trust
and community or which degrades the dignity of both parties- and
relationships, after all, are what makes us most truly human.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Behar

Shalom Friends!

This week’s Torah portion, Behar, is often read with the following portion,
Behukotai, but
this year stands on its own. Behar begins with the laws of the Sabbatical and
Jubilee years,
and then lays out a system of laws regulating land sales due to poverty or need.
Similarly,
a person who in desperation has to sell themselves into servitude must be
treated with
dignity and respect. There are also distinctions made between Israelite and
non-Israelite
indentured workers which seem ethically problematic, but that’s a discussion for
another
day.

At the very end of the Torah portion, after a long set of laws dealing with
employment and
servitude, there is general injunction against idolatry, which has an
interesting
architectural detail attached to it:

“You shall not make idols for yourselves, nor shall you set up a statue or a
monument for
yourselves. And in your land you shall not place a pavement stone on which to
prostrate
yourselves. . . ” (Vayikra/ Leviticus 26:1)

OK, no idolatrous statues, that’s pretty clear, but what are these “pavement
stones” we’re
not supposed to put down?

Our teacher Rashi says that these pavement stones were a flat covering on the
ground, a
kind of stone floor. Rashi also asks why we’re not supposed to “prostrate”
ourselves on a
stone floor – wouldn’t such an act be a way of humbling ourselves before Heaven?

Answering his own question (as rabbis like to do), Rashi says that stretching
out on a
stone floor, even as worship, is prohibited outside the central Temple of
Jerusalem, where
“prostration” was part of the worship. This answer can be compared to other
aspects of
rabbinic (i.e., our) Judaism which distinguish between the worship of the
ancient Temple
and contemporary practice. For example, there is a teaching not to put roasted
meat on
the table at a Passover seder, so as not to confuse people into thinking it’s
really the
Passover sacrifice, which we don’t do anymore without the ancient priesthood and
Temple.

On the other hand- wouldn’t laying oneself out on a stone floor be a powerful
way to show
one’s humility and internal orientation towards Heaven?

Yes, and maybe that’s the reason we’re not supposed to do it on our own. Most
people
want to be thought of as good people, as people of character and proper values-
so there
is always a danger that legitimate spiritual practices will be done as a public
display, as a
way to show off one’s piety and goodness. So perhaps the Torah knows that if
people were
laying themselves out on stone floors, evoking the rituals of humility and
devotion in the
Temple, it could become a shallow act, done for show and not for spiritual
growth. To put
it another way, grand acts of showing one’s humility could become another source
of pride
and self-aggrandizement, which is precisely not the intent of the ritual.

Here’s the paradox, as I see it: sometimes public rituals (like, for example,
bowing down to
the floor on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, or wearing a beautiful tallit during
prayer, or
creating a sense of sacred time on Shabbat and the holidays) really help a
person achieve a
sense of awe and transcendence and spirituality. Yet human beings are naturally
competitive, so it’s also true that being “observant” (understood broadly) in
public can
create a temptation to show off, to be proudly humble, as it were.

So although I have no immediate plans to put a stone floor for worship in my
backyard, the
challenge remains: how does one nurture an internal orientation towards God and
Torah
without becoming ostentatious about it? How do we let Jewish ritual take us to
great
heights of spiritual experience without letting pride or ego get in the way?
Ritual practice
is essential to a rich Jewish spiritual life, yet even bowing before God can
become an idol
without introspection about one’s true motivation.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Behar

This d’var Torah was originally distributed by Kolel: The Adult Center for Jewish Learning during the year 5760 and can be found in its archives.

OVERVIEW

The Torah portion Behar has two main themes: the Sabbath of the Land, and ethical balances to free-market dangers. The Sabbath of the Land, called shmitta, occurs once every seven years; the land lies fallow as an acknowledgment of God as the Creator. Every seven cycles of seven years, there is a “Jubilee” year, called yovel, in which slaves go free, certain debts are canceled, and land returns to its original titleholders. Further laws are given pertaining to debts and property: one must help people avoid debt-servitude, and one must help people to avoid losing their property. Interest and oppressive financial practices are prohibited. The parasha ends with a general reminder to keep God’s laws, especially the Sabbath and the prohibition on idolatry.

IN FOCUS

“If your brother falls low, and his hand falters beside you, then you shall strengthen him- sojourner or resident- and he will live with you.” (Leviticus 25:35)

PSHAT

If you see someone falling into poverty or getting into trouble, you must help them, even to the extent of taking them into your home. The commandment starts with the terminology of “your brother,” (i.e., a fellow Israelite, or perhaps someone from your tribe or clan) but in the end seems to imply that we must help any person in trouble, Jew or non-Jew.

DRASH

Terse and idiomatic, it’s not clear from our verse what situation the Torah is addressing: is this a case of indebtedness, as would seem logical from the surrounding verses? If so, is it specifically directed at the creditors, exhorting them to be judicious and merciful with their financial power? Or is it a more general commandment to the Israelites, encompassing any kind of trouble or “falling low” that might happen to a person?

Let’s begin by comparing several translations and seeing how the translation itself is an interpretation:

Jewish Publication Society

“If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your authority, and you hold him as though a resident alien, let him live by your side. . . . ”

Reading this, one would think that the verse is directed to creditors; they must not treat “kinsmen” as if they were non-Jews by evicting them or seizing their property, because “one who mortgaged his land or sold it to another became, in a real sense, a tenant on his own land.” Alternatively, one must not turn a “kinsman” into a “resident alien” by evicting them; one must be compassionate and find a way to keep the poor “by your side” and in the community.

The Orthodox Artscroll translation and commentary sees the commandment to help in more general terms, but agrees with JPS that the point is to help people maintain their status as productive members of the community:

“If your brother becomes impoverished and his means falter in your proximity, you shall strengthen him- proselyte or resident- so that he can live with you.” (Emphasis added.)

Everett Fox, in The Schocken Bible, translates the verse in a way that implies that we must extend assistance to “our brother,” the sojourner, and the resident-settler equally:

“Now when your brother sinks down (in poverty), and his hand falters beside you, then you shall strengthen him (as though) a sojourner and a resident-settler, and he is to live beside you.”

This translation seems to turn around the potential ethnocentrism of the verse: just as you would help a sojourner in need, you also need to help the person close to you. It’s fascinating to think that the imperative of helping someone within one’s community might be derived from the classic idea of welcoming the stranger, and not vice versa.

The idea that this verse teaches equality in social ethics is made explicit by Aryeh Kaplan, in his Living Bible, an interpretive translation according to traditional Jewish sources:

“When your brother becomes impoverished and loses the ability to support himself in the community, you must come to his aid. Help him survive, whether he is a proselyte or a native Israelite. “

On the other hand, the New Revised Standard Version, a reliable and scholarly but not Jewish translation of the Bible, renders our verse with a somewhat different twist:

“And if your brother becomes poor, and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall maintain him; as a stranger and a sojourner he shall live with you.“

This is almost the opposite of the JPS translation; the interpretation here is that the consequences of becoming so poor that one needs social assistance is that one becomes like a “stranger and a sojourner,” rather than keeping one’s full status in the community.

One might be tempted to argue that a Christian translation could be biased towards seeing the Torah laws as harsh and punitive, while the Jewish translations, based as they often are on traditional Torah commentary, are more oriented towards finding the maximum charity and compassion in our verse. However, at least one Jewish translation, the old Soncino Chumash, renders the verse with the same meaning as the NRSV:

“And if thy brother be waxen poor, and his means fail with thee, then thou shalt uphold him; as a stranger and a settler shall he live with thee.”

The commentators and translators disagree about the extent of our obligation to help those in need: do we give special consideration to the members of our community, or do we help all equally? ( Which might spread out our resources quite thinly.) Is there an inevitable social consequence to poverty, or must we find a way to keep the poor and the well-off on exactly the same social level?

These are questions with parallels in contemporary political debates across North America. Yet all the commentators agree that willingness to reach out to a person in need is a basic religious value, and that economic power brings with it the responsibility to act justly. In fact, the Chafetz Chaim, paraphrasing an earlier midrash, says that in the World to Come, one will be questioned about all the observances that one kept or didn’t keep, but it will be a “great and terrible thing” when they ask if one kept the mitzvah of “strengthening one’s brother.” He continues by reminding us that there will come a moment in everyone’s life when a poor person, or a troubled person, or a desperate person, will come to you for help- at that moment, you have a choice, to help or not, to fulfill this basic mitzvah or to turn your back, to “strengthen your brother” (or sister) or to “let his hand falter besides you.”