B'har

Leviticus 25:1-26:2

Dvar Torah by Robert Tornberg, RJE, for ReformJudasim.org

For God's Sake

Parashat B'har begins in a very unusual way. "The Eternal One spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: . . ." (Leviticus 25:1-2). Since the Book of Exodus, we have come to expect phrases in the Torah like "The Eternal said to Moses . . . "; "The Eternal spoke to Moses and Aaron . . . "; and, in Leviticus, "The Eternal One called to Moses from the Tent of Meeting . . . " (Leviticus 1:1). Why, in this instance, do we have a somewhat different "introduction" mentioning Sinai? After all, we already know – and assume everywhere else in the Torah – that Torah was given at Sinai. Why say it again?

Rashi and other commentators have made efforts to explain this using fairly convoluted logic. I would suggest that this phrase is intended to make us sit up and pay attention, not so much to the actual laws that follow, but to the actual message or meaning embedded in these statutes and ordinances. So what are the rules that may lead us to these bigger ideas?

The first set of regulations following our introduction includes laws about the Sabbatical Year – the land's Sabbath. Every seventh year, the land must have a complete rest: ". . . you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines. . . . But you may eat whatever the land during its sabbath will produce . . . " (Leviticus 25:4-6). While any number of commentators try to explain how this shows a good understanding of the science of agriculture, for our purposes, please set this thought aside until we get to a discussion of our "bigger ideas."

The next group of laws is related to the Sabbatical in many ways, especially in the use of the number seven. "You shall count off seven weeks of years – seven times seven years – so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years" (Leviticus 25:8). Then, on Yom Kippur in the fiftieth year, the shofar is sounded and a Yovel (often translated as "Jubilee") is proclaimed. During this entire fiftieth year, the land again lies fallow (yes, for the second year in a row!), all agricultural lands that have been sold in the previous fifty years revert to the original owners, and Israelite slaves are to be set free. Much has been written about the progressive economic and social implications of these rules, but again, those comments will not be our focus here.

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