JUBILEE
JUBILATION: PARSHAT BEHAR
Shira Smiles
shiur – May 4, 2014/Iyar 4, 5774
Summary by
Channie Koplowitz Stein
Parshat
Behar is completely occupied with the laws that
pertain to yovel, the jubilee year, the fiftieth year in the
cycle of
counting the years in Eretz Yisroel, from the basic laws to the
tangential
laws. The Parsha begins with instructions on calculating the jubilee
year,
“Seven cycles of sabbatical years, seven times seven, the years
of the seven
cycles of sabbatical years shall be for you forty nine years.”
Then the Torah
continues with instructions that on Yom Kippur “you shall sound
the shofar
throughout the land … You shall proclaim freedom throughout the
land for all
its inhabitants. … You shall return each man to his ancestral
heritage and you
shall return each man to his family.” What a complex, seemingly
convoluted and,
for the Torah, an extraordinarily wordy calculation. Would it not have
been
equally effective to say, “After seven sabbatical cycles, the
jubilee year will
begin in the fiftieth year? Sound the shofar on Yom Kippur of that
year.”
Besides
the emphasis on the calculation, which the Rosh
Yeshiva of Mount Kisco, Rabbi Yona Furst, explains in his
compilation Divrei
Yonah as a means of awakening us to the passage of time, so that we
use the
time from one shemitah year to the next productively rather than wonder
where
the time went, several other questions are raised by these verses.
First, why
do we inaugurate the jubilee year with the sounding of the shofar.
Further, why
do we sound the shofar on Yom Kippur, ten days after the actual onset
of the
jubilee year on Rosh Hashanah, and finally, since it would appear that
most of
the laws of the yovel seem to pertain to land owners, what is
the
significance of proclaiming freedom for all the inhabitants of
the land,
landowner and non landowner alike?
Rashi
writes that the year is named yovel for
the sounding of the shofar, for the Torah calls the sounding of the
shofar at
Sinai mshoch hayovel, the pulling or sounding of the shofar
that would
allow Bnei Yisroel to again ascend the mountain. Nevertheless, why
sound the
shofar at all for the yovel year? Both Rabbi Frand and Rabbi
Pam
quote the sefer Hachinuch who explains that sounding the shofar
throughout the
land creates a universal rather than a personal experience. Rabbi Frand
sees in
this universality an element of peer pressure, for it must be hard for
someone
to suddenly give up what he has possessed for so long, his slave who
has been
indentured to him for up to forty nine years. But the shofar blast
reminds him
that everyone is now doing this, for Hashem has so commanded, and he
must also
do what is right. On the flip side, Rabbi Pam suggests that since this
is a
group experience, the landed slave owner has an automatic support
group,
knowing that everyone else is also suffering the “loss” of
these slaves as
well.
Related
to the idea of giving up one’s slave is the
entire concept of mesirat nefesh, self sacrifice, and our most
powerful
example of self sacrifice is Avraham Avinu who tied his beloved son
Yitzchak as
a sacrifice at God’s command. By blowing the ram’s horn, we
are reminded of our
ancestor’s willingness for literal self sacrifice. At the
angel’s command,
Avraham substituted the ram, entangled by his horns in the bushes, as
the
substitute for his son. The ram’s horn, therefore, serves as an
everlasting
reminder of the greatest self sacrifice.
But, as
Rabbi Pam points out, while every day we
recite, “And you shall love your God with all your heart and with
all your
soul,” to which giving one’s life for the sanctification of
God’s name refers,
it is sometimes even more difficult to part with one’s money and
possessions,
to which loving your God “with all your might/wealth”
refers. This truth is
apparent not only with people sometimes fighting an attacker to save
one’s
wallet, but especially with the prevalence of heart attacks caused by
the
stress of business and profit to maintain an ephemeral lifestyle.
Whereas the
trial of the generation of the Holocaust was the trial of body and
soul, the
trial of our generation is our willingness to give of our material
wealth for
our God, to support yeshivas or other Jewish causes. Yovel
teaches us
that we are not masters of our money or of our possessions, for all
belongs to
our universal Master. As such, we are merely sojourners and residents,
even in
our own homes, for God is the rightful owner. At yovel, our
bought land
and slaves return to their original Owner. All our material
possessions
are transient, and only Torah and our good deeds are permanent.
This
realization that we are not eternally and
inextricably tied to our earthly possessions has the wondrous ability
to free
us from the stresses of this world and from the clutches of the yetzer
horo,
writes Rav Moshe Shternbach in Taam Vodaat. Thus the shofar
blast
proclaims freedom to all the inhabitants of the land who now
internalize that
whatever they have (or do not have) is a gift from God. With this
mindset, one
also understand boundaries, and I neither desire that which
belongs to
another, nor feel entitled to take that which is not mine, whether it
is
pencils and paper clips from the office, or borrowing a friend’s
tools without
first asking permission.
The
shofar blast in the yovel year calls us back
to realizing our own insignificance before Hashem just as it does
during the
Days of Awe, and brings us back to Teshuvah, as it releases us from the
arrogance we acquire together with our possessions, writes Rabbi Moshe
Egbi in
his compilation, Chochmat Hamatzpun.
Ultimately,
yovel is not only about the land
returning to its original place, says Rabbi Gamliel Horowitz in Tiv
Hatorah.
What Hashem really wants is for all of us, even those who have veered
off the
right path, to return to our ancestral home, to our heritage. Hashem
wants us
to do teshuvah as we would on Yom Kippur and free our souls to go back
where
they belong, just as all property goes back to its original owner
during yovel.
It is
interesting to note that while the eved ivri, the
Jewish servant, is freed on Rosh Hashanah, he does not go home
immediately,
notes Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter in Drash Dovid. Instead, he stays
in the
home of his former master for ten days, eating and drinking at will as
if he
himself were lord of the castle. He goes home only after the shofar
blast of
Yom Kippur. Rabbi Hofstedter explains that a servant is indentured not
only
physically, but also mentally and emotionally. If this former servant
is now to
become an eved Hashem, a true servant of God, he must free
himself of
the slave mentality. He must feel his freedom in his very essence so
that he
can choose to serve Hashem wholeheartedly. He must recognize that not
only is
he now no longer serving his master, but neither is he now dependent on
a human
being for his sustenance, for he can eat and drink as he pleases, and
he will
now only be dependent on Hakodosh Boruch Hu and be responsible for his
actions
only to Him. This process of emotional liberation, writes Rabbi Miller,
is
completed after ten days, on Yom Kippur.
Now we
can further understand why the shofar is sounded
for all the inhabitants, for the message is not just to the servant but
also to
the master who equally owes his service to the Master of all.
Yovel is from
the verb meaning to lead. That shofar blast, writes Rabbi Rivlin,
quoting Rav
Hirsch, is to lead us all back, just as the ram leads the flock back at
the end
of the day’s feeding.
As
alluded to earlier, we are all slaves to a certain
extent of modern technology and materialism. Since we do not practice yovel
today, how can we incorporate these ideals into our daily lives? Rabbi
Brazile
in Bishvili Nivra Haolam draws on the common practice of
kissing the
mezuzah to connect us to this concept. While the hand makes a physical
connection with the mezuzah, the connection is also metaphysical. We
know that
each handprint is unique with individual lifelines. There are also
lines that
the sofer, scribe, uses when writing the passages on the
parchment of
the mezuzah. When we make that physical connection, we are also making
the
spiritual connection that is renewing our contract with Hakodosh Boruch
Hu, as
if we are signing those passages from the Torah in the mezuzah case. I
kiss the
mezuzah with my extended hand and dedicate my service to Him with all
the
uniqueness of my being toward my unique mission.
Indeed,
the letters for the word “lines” on both the
palm and the mezuzah are an acronym for four of our senses: SeReT
= Shemiya, sound; Reiyah
and Rayach,
sight and smell; Taam, taste. When we extend our
hand, we
incorporate our final sense, touch. Similarly, by covering my eyes with
my hand
when I say Kriyat Shema, I am also reminding myself of my
uniqueness and
dedicating myself to God’s service.
So
between kissing the mezuzah and saying the Shema
I can incorporate the messages of yovel and the shofar blasts
associated
with it into my unique psyche. I bear witness that no man is master
over
another, but God is Master over us all. I wish to return to the roots
of my
ancestors who served only Him, and I rely only on Him. This
relationship of
trust and love and dedication is the source of true jubilation, for I
realize
that whatever exists in the material, transient world that surrounds
me, my
soul is connected to eternity.