I. Real Responsibilities
THE CORE IDEA
Underlying many of the laws contained in Parashat Behar is a revolutionary concept (to this day) about property and ownership. Ultimately, all things belong to God. This is a theological equivalent of the legal concept of “eminent domain,” that the king has ultimate ownership and power over all lands within his kingdom. In the case of Israel, eminent domain – both in relation to persons and to land – relates to God. This is stated explicitly in our parasha:
In relation to land: “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine and you are but aliens and My tenants” (Vayikra 25:23).
In relation to persons: “Because the Israelites are My servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God” (Vayikra 25:42–43).
Because ultimately, true ownership belongs only to God, everything we possess we merely hold as God’s trustees. One of the conditions of that trust is that we do not use wealth or power in ways incompatible with human dignity.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. Why is it fair that God owns all of our possessions, even if we worked hard for them?
2. On what conditions does God allow us to have possessions, even if they really belong to Him?
IT ONCE HAPPENED…
When Eliana was preparing for her bat mitzva she told her parents she wanted to do something really meaningful. She knew she was very lucky to live the comfortable life her parents had worked hard to give her, and didn’t need all the presents her friends and family were bound to give her. So she sat with her parents and decided that she would do something for the families of her hometown who struggled to afford school supplies for their children, and even hot meals sometimes.
Instead of accepting presents, she would encourage her guests to donate to her fundraising campaign, and she raised more than $20,000! With the help of a local charity they distributed the money to families in need and also took her friends to volunteer in a soup kitchen to help feed the hungry, and give out school supplies to those who needed them.
Eliana made her family very proud of her, as she demonstrated how grateful she was for the material comfort she lived with. She showed sensitivity to those who had less than her, and how lucky she was to have all that she did. And above all, how we only deserve our wealth if we use it in a way that makes the world a better place!
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. Didn’t Eliana deserve the presents she was going to get from friends and family?
2. How was Eliana’s campaign an example of “partnering with God” to make the world a better place?
THINKING MORE DEEPLY
“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family” (Vayikra 25:10).
These words, taken from the parasha of Behar, are inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. It was the chiming of this bell, from the tower of Independence Hall on July 8, 1776, that summoned citizens to hear the very first public reading of the American Declaration of Independence. Biblical freedom inspired American freedom.
They are also the opening words of the book on international debt relief, I.O.U.: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It by economist Noreena Hertz. The verse inspired one of the major economic initiatives of the twenty-first century: Jubilee 2000, an international programme by governments and monetary institutions to reduce, or in some cases cancel, the burden of debt borne by many developing countries (34 billion dollars of debt repayment were cancelled, affecting twenty-two countries, eighteen of them in Africa). Launching the initiative in Britain, the Treasury invited not just economists, but religious leaders also. Jubilee 2000 was explicitly based on the principle of the biblical Jubilee, the fiftieth year, during which slaves were freed and land was returned to its ancestral owners. Seldom has an ancient idea more effectively proved its relevance to the contemporary world. The social programme of Behar, with its concern for economic justice, debt relief, welfare, and humane working conditions, speaks with undiminished power to the problems of a global economy.
To be sure, there is no direct inference to be made from the Torah to contemporary politics. Jews have identified with all shades of the political spectrum: from Trotsky to Milton Friedman, from socialism and communism to laissez-faire capitalism. The Torah is not an economic theory or a party-political programme. It is about eternity, whereas politics is about the here and now: the mediation of competing claims and the management of change. The Torah – especially Vayikra chapter 25 – sets out the parameters of a society based on equality and liberty. These are eternal values. But they conflict. It is hard to pursue both fully at the same time. Communism favours equality at the cost of liberty. Free market capitalism favours liberty at the cost of equality. How we construct the balance varies from age to age and place to place.
The State of Israel, for example, was heavily influenced in its early years by socialism (and in the case of the kibbutz, communism). More recently it has moved closer to Reaganomics and Thatcherism. The conditions are not yet in place for a restoration of the biblical Jubilee. According to some authorities, it requires the presence of all or most of the Jewish people – i.e., the absence of a Diaspora. According to others, it only applies when the original twelve tribes occupy the land allocated to them in the days of Moshe and Yehoshua. Despite all these limitations, we can infer certain general parameters of a Torah approach to politics and economics.
Property rights are important to the biblical vision. Psalm 128 says, “When you eat the fruit of your labour, you shall be happy and you shall prosper.” The prophet Mikha foresaw the day when “every man will sit under his own vine and his own fig tree and no one will make them afraid” (Mikha 4:4). The classic critique of “big government” is contained in Shmuel’s warning against the dangers of corrupt power. Speaking about the risk of appointing a king, he says:
“This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plough his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants” (I Sam. 8:11–14).
And so on. This becomes high drama in the time of King Aḥav, the prophet Eliyahu, and the vineyard of Navot. The queen, Izevel, arranges for Navot to be killed so that his land can be seized.
Governments tend to appropriate property. Sadly, there continue to be too many parts of the world today where corruption disfigures the exercise of power. Hence private property rights are an essential defence of personal liberty. Within limits, free trade and limited government (albeit with due provision for publicly funded education and welfare) are consistent with a biblical vision whose key concerns are freedom, justice, and personal independence. In Judaism, the state exists to serve the individual, not the individual the state.
What the twenty-fifth chapter of Vayikra addresses, however, are the long-term inequities of the market. Poverty creates the need for loans, and the burden of debt can become cumulative and crippling. It can lead people to sell their land and even their freedom: in ancient times this meant selling oneself into slavery. Today it means “sweatshop” labour at less than subsistence wages. Hence the need for periodic redistribution: the cancellation of debts, the liberation of slaves, and the return of ancestral property (other than that within walled cities). That is the logic of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years.
It was a gloriously humane structure, the proof of which lies in the fact that even today it inspires politicians, economists, and religious leaders far beyond the Jewish community. Its key insight is that the governance of society must be based on moral considerations, above all, the dignity of the individual. No one must suffer humiliating poverty. No member of the covenant community must be condemned to perennial slavery, or debt, or the burden of interest repayments. No one must lose their share in the land. Beyond the specific halakhic parameters of these laws is the larger ethical vision of what a decent society should look like. This has not ceased to be compelling in an age of international corporations, instantaneous communications, and the global economy.
In an age of vast inequalities of income within and between societies – in which a billion people lack adequate food and shelter, clean water, and medical facilities, and thirty thousand children die each day from preventable diseases, the vision of Behar still challenges us with its ideals. I believe wealth and power are not privileges but responsibilities, and we are summoned to become God’s partners in building a world less random and capricious, more equitable and humane.
QUESTION TO PONDER
Which political and economic system do you think is most compatible with Torah ethics?
FROM THE THOUGHT OF RABBI SACKS
Judaism has a high regard for private property as an institution governing the relations between human beings. At the same time, though, governing the relationship between humanity and God, there has been an equal insistence that what we have, we do not unconditionally own. Ultimately everything belongs to God. What we have, we hold in trust. And there are conditions to that trust – or as the great Victorian Jew Sir Moses Montefiore put it, “We are worth what we are willing to share with others.”
The Power of Ideas, 241
AROUND THE SHABBAT TABLE
Who do you think should get the credit for the creation of the things that we own?
What are the values and messages underpinning the agricultural laws found in the twenty-fifth chapter of Vayikra?
How can we partner with God in building a “less random and more equitable and humane world”?
EDUCATIONAL COMPANION TO THE QUESTIONS
IN A NUTSHELL
Mitzvot are not only personal commandments to make individuals better people, but also the law code of a good society. The mitzvot found in this parasha are geared towards building a fair society.
THE CORE IDEA
Judaism believes in a partnership with God in all things, including the acquisition of wealth and possessions. While it is true that we work hard to create wealth, we must always realise that God created the world, and all physical things originate with Him. He has provided the favourable conditions necessary for the creation of our wealth. This includes our natural talents, and the other factors necessary in the natural world (for example, while a farmer can be talented and hardworking, he also needs fertile soil and favourable weather for his plants to grow).
God allows us (and even encourages us) to work hard and have and enjoy possessions, as long as we are aware of His role in their creation, and also that we use them for moral purposes, especially for improving the world and making it a better place to live for its inhabitants.
IT ONCE HAPPENED…
Of course Eliana deserved her presents on this important milestone in her life. But she was lucky enough to have many material blessings that her parents had worked hard to give to her. So she decided she could forgo more possessions and take the opportunity instead to give to those in need who were less privileged than her. (No need to worry about Eliana…she did get some presents, as some of her friends and family both donated and gave her presents!).
Eliana gave her friends and family an opportunity to use their wealth to make the world a better place. This is a great example of how we can use our resources, which God has given us and helped us create, to partner with Him in His work by making the world a better place!
THINKING MORE DEEPLY
This is a fascinating question perhaps without any definitive answers. Rabbi Sacks wrote often how the democratic political systems and capitalist economies of the West were to some extent founded on Torah values, although this is not to say that there are not the same values found in other systems also. While Torah values can be the foundation of a system and the motivating factors of those who establish it, ultimately political and economic systems are morally neutral, and need actors within them to input values and morality.
AROUND THE SHABBAT TABLE
Possessions can be thought of as an example of a partnership between us and God. While we work hard to create wealth, we could not do this without the help of God, who gives us the necessary conditions, including our own talents and abilities. However, unless we work hard to create material wealth we will remain without it. So the answer is really both ourselves and God.
These laws, which include agricultural tithes, the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, and the laws of charity, remind us always that our material wealth belongs first and foremost to God and that we must show gratitude to Him for it and use it for the greater good. These laws also demonstrate the value of the dignity of humankind, ḥesed, and equality and liberty.
We can partner with God to create a fairer and more just world through social action and small acts of kindness, as well as working hard at a national level to create a society based on these values. Every person can make a difference, however small or great.