Shalom. I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsberg of the Ezra-Habonim, Niles Township Jewish Congregation. This video is about the Torah portion, the last two portions on the Book of Leviticus, Vayikra. The first is called the Behar and second is called the Bechukkotai. They are often read together, they are very short, of relatively and this is the case this year in 2007 and will it be read together.
Behar, deals with several important ancient institutions. The first is Shemittah, which is that every seventh year, there is a cessation of agricultural work in the land of Israel, and all of debts are cancelled. Now in terms of the first, when you go to Israel like next year would be a Sabbatical year, that is usually not the greatest produced because there are many farmers in Israel that do not produced especially the Orthodox it would seem. But when this institution was revived when the Jews begin returning to Israel, the Chief where evident ruled that if you sell the land to a non-Jew, then the laws do not apply because it is owned by a non-Jew. And so you can plant, kind of a legal fiction which is still practiced. But it was an early kind of soil conservation, very brilliant of the Torah of course, a thousand of years ago to come up with this, where the land would lie fallow for a year and be allowed to regenerate its nutrients. Also, there is a moral quality to this which is to tell us that we do not own the land. The land is owned by God and we just are users of it.
The second part of that is the cessation of debt. Now, the Torah is concerned of course that people will not loan money in the sixth year, if the debts are cancelled on the seventh year. This was sort of an early form of bankruptcy protection to avoid people getting too deeply in debt. And the Rabbi’s will worry that people would not be able to borrow money when they needed it because of that. And so they instituted various rabbinic mechanisms to allow people to keep the spirit of the Torah, the letter of the Torah, and also the spirit of the Torah, but the idea was to help the poor.
The second institution is the Sabbatical Yovel, the Jubilee, this are the seven sets of seven years. It was a lot of sevens and holiness in the Torah. Every seven days as Shabath, seven times seven in (foreign language) the period of course. The Sabbatical year every seventh year and then after seven cycle of that, you have the Jubilee in the 50th. When slaves were set free, these were the indentured servitude, people who were basically working as an indentured servants and land reverted to its original owners. So, people would not be able to hold on the land forever.
A very famous sentence from that passage about the Jubilee is now part of the Americana. A liberty bell proclaims liberty throughout the land and towards inhabitants thereof. Now, I want to speak about that very fundamental idea of Judaism, for example; think about it in the whole Middle East, there is only one democracy, real democracy in that area and that is Israel. As it conceivable at the Jewish state would be set up, there was not a democracy. Because liberty and democracy have been the key stone values. The whole holiday of Passover is about redemption from slavery and bondage and being free for every morning. Thank God for making us free.
The notion of freedom is so well and constant in our tradition. A Hanukah is a story about a group of Jews who rebelled against the tyranny of Greece and one of religious freedom and political freedom. And that indeed is one of the essential messages and stories of America, the idea of wanting to be free. In fact, if you think the messianic image and the prophets. It took about how everyone can set under their own violent free fig tree and no one will make them afraid. In my mind these are great medieval rabbi talking about that says essentially there is no difference between this world and the messianic world except that people would be free, that Israel would not be subjugated by the nations. People would be free to worship God in our own way. And so we have freedom and democracy at the very heart of the Jewish idea for the world and these comes from the proclaimed liberty throughout the land, one of the essential verses.
Finally, we have pasts of the Bechukkotai which is the very interesting portion that basically promises rewards for people that and blessings for people that follow the Torah and curses the people that do not. We found over the courses of time that individuals who live by the ideas of the Torah and the laws of the Torah have a much fuller spiritual life and a much fuller life and live at peace and conscience. It does not mean that everything will go well and factor of great tragedies that happen to good people. We believe there is a reward and a world to come for the goodness and the punishment for the wicked. But essentially the Torah saying that, “Dear God, gave us the God’s ideas about the word that we should follow them.”
So this is how we end the book of Leviticus and of course whenever we finish the book of the Torah. We say (foreign language). We should all be strengthened in the following of God’s ways and growing in spirituality.
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