Prayer in the Parashah תְּפִלָּה
Every 50 years, יוֹבֵל (yovel) would be announced with shofar blasts. Hebrew slaves would be freed, and land would return to its original owners. (See Understanding the Verses)
In the 10th בְּרָכָה (berakhah, blessing) of the weekday Amidah, we make a request from God that also combines shofar and freedom:
(א) תְּקַע בְּשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל לְחֵרוּתֵֽנוּ
Sound the great shofar for our freedom
The word for freedom in our parashah is דְּרוֹר (deror) and in the Amidah it’s חֵרוּת (heirut). But it’s all the same idea; you can see that the Aramaic for deror is חֵרוּתָא (heiruta)! (Check out Onkelos on our parashah, 25:10.)
In this section of the Amidah we are asking God for קִבּוּץ גְּלוּיוֹת (kibbutz galuyot, the gathering of the exiles), which is a certain kind of freedom. But when we say the words about the “great shofar” we can also think about the shofar of yovel that appears in our parashah, and we can remember how slaves would become free in the yovel year.
- Why is the gathering of the exiles considered a kind of freedom? What’s “not free” about being in exile?
- What makes you feel free or not free? Can you think of different kinds of freedom, like some that are physical and some that are spiritual or emotional?
- Do you know of people who are not free? What might help them?
- In the Torah, people sometimes became slaves and lost their freedom because they didn’t have enough money. How might this influence what you think about when you say this berakhah in the Amidah?
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