Of all our readings in our cycle, particularly our Levitical cycle, its the earlier chapters of Leviticus with their emphasis on the sacrificial cultic system that we so often think of as providing the greatest affront to our modern sensibilities. The idea of schlepping animals to and slaughtering them on the Temple altar as a form of worship or spiritual cleansing ritual certainly flies in the face of our modern concepts of worship. We certainly don’t think of Parashat Behar containing the well known verse וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ לְכָל-יֹשְׁבֶיהָ, ‘Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof’ as its translated on the Liberty Bell as offensive to our modern values. On the contrary, this verse’s appearance on such an icon of American history has made this biblical mandate a symbol of the American values of liberty and democracy.
Yet, I’d argue that the rules of the shmita and yuval outlined here force us to confront our modern sensibilities as readily if not more so than the details of the Temple worship system, specifically with regard to the American values of materialism and capitalism.
Parashat Behar recognizes the inherent value of work. שֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים תִּזְרַע שָֹדֶךָ וְשֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים תִּזְמֹר כַּרְמֶךָ וְאָסַפְתָּ אֶת-תְּבוּאָתָהּ: “Six years you may sow your fields, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather its yield.” Recall, this was an agrarian society, a society fully and directly dependent on the land; our biblical ancestors’ survival depended on their agricultural skills, skills applied in a manner in which made them and the land productive. Yet contrary to our contemporary capitalistic notions, parashat behar places clear limits on material productivity. וּבַשָּׁנָה הַשְּׁבִיעִת שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן יִהְיֶה לָאָרֶץ שַׁבָּת לַיהוָֹה שָֹדְךָ לֹא תִזְרָע וְכַרְמְךָ לֹא תִזְמר ….. “but in the 7th year, the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Shabbat to Adonai; your field, you shall not sow, and your vineyard, you shall not prune.
We are commanded to stop, to stop working the land. Remarkable in and of itself, but all the more so when read in context with that verse that appears just before it: שֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים תִּזְרַע שָֹדֶךָ וְשֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים תִּזְמֹר כַּרְמֶךָ וְאָסַפְתָּ אֶת-תְּבוּאָתָהּ: “Six years you may sow your fields, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather its yield; but in the 7th year, you must not sow or prune.” Note the pronouns (you know from my passion for such details that the grammar matters). While the text refers to the field and vineyard as being ‘ours,’ (שדך\כרמך – your field, your vineyard), the yield, the product, of our field and vineyard is not. It would have been far more poetic to continue using the 2nd nominal pronoun: תבואתך (read it aloud) but rather our writer chooses to break the poetic pattern and uses the 3rd person: תבואתה. The use of the 3rd person stands out in this sentence that otherwise is fully personalized by the 2nd person: you shall sow your field; you shall prune your vineyards, so that you can gather ITs yield. No matter how much work and effort is place in tilling the land, its produce remains beyond ownership. It isn’t ours, it belongs to its source – the land and by extension, ultimately God.
Now, doesn’t the first story of creation in Bereshit tell us that we have dominion over the earth? “Look,” the first chapter of Genesis imagines God saying, “I have given you all the seed-bearing plants on the face of the earth, and every tree that has in it seedbearing fruit.” (Genesis 1:29) It’s all there for us, for our taking, no? The Levitical hand reminds us that dominion has limits, and these regulations outlined in parashat behar not only underscore these limits, but offer a vital even if seemingly counterintuitive lesson to our capitalisitic, material based, 24/7 mind-set that has become normative in America.
We can stop. Despite our fears that we may no longer be able to sustain ourselves without constant effort, we can. I imagine the text telling us to take a deep, cleansing yoga breath! Of course, it isn’t all about taking the break. There is a vital unspoken message in the text. The unspoken message of the Sabbatical year is that consumption must be monitored in the years leading up to the Sabbatical year in order to insure our sustainability during our work stoppage. This requires of us conscious planning and conservation during the productive years in order to make best use of the resources available during the land’s rest. The land has not been given to us for reckless use. Working it and deriving sustenance from it are privileges that require accountability and care.
Perhaps the text is warning us also against the dangers of taking too much pride in our work, our productivity, so much so that it bleeds over into the domain of undue proprietorship. Pride in our labor is a wonderful and important motivator, yet this prohibition against working the land for a full year every 7 years can serve to remind us that the world will keep revolving without constant attempts at controlling or manipulating it towards our goals, no matter how lofty those goals may be. We are not commanded to refrain from taking advantage of what the land offers; we are commanded to refrain from working it toward our advantage. Eleventh century French commentator Rashi imagines God telling us through these regulations, “I do not forbid you to eat it [the produce during the Sabbath year ] or otherwise benefit from it. What I am forbidding you is to treat it as if you owned it. Rather everyone should be equal with respect to it.”
Immediately on the heels of the regulation regarding the shmitah, this Shabbat for the land that comes every 7 years, comes the mandate perpetualized on the Liberty Bell, the mandate of the yuval, after 7 weeks of 7 years – 49 years, we are to:
וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ לְכָל-יֹשְׁבֶיהָ, ‘Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof’. This King’s James translation fits our modern American sensibilities with regard to freedom, a freedom we equate with being able to pursue what we want, when we want – to be able to work as we wish and claim ownership over all that we produce. The Hebrew implies a different connotation. Dror at its essence refers to ‘release’ or ‘emancipation’ from that which makes a claim on us or from that which we claim as our own. Capitalism values work and productivity, and as Americans we are incredibly fortunate to be free to be able to pursue any occupation, and we are accordingly taught that hard work rewards us with well- deserved material plenty. U’kratem Dror ba-aretz, however, offers an equally valid lesson that is necessary for our modern world – it teaches us the importance of releasing ourselves from this sense of material entitlement.
The lesson of parashat Behar is to work, to put forth our full effort – this is necessary for us to sustain ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually; but then to also to pause and remind ourselves that we are not to be defined by what we produce but rather how we care for the land and this earth that has been but lent to us.
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