There are few sounds as moving to the Jewish soul as hearing the Torah offer a promise so complete and reassuring: a life in Eretz Yisrael marked by security, prosperity, and freedom from threat. In Parashat Behar, the Torah grants us a breathtaking vision of what life can be—if we commit to a society rooted in justice, compassion, and mutual responsibility. Rabbi Paul Bloom explains the nature of this commitment and the benefit it confers.
A Divine Promise with a
Condition
In
Vayikra 25:18–19 we are told
that, if we follow God's statutes, “you
shall dwell in the land securely”. Not only that, but the land will be
fruitful, the economy will flourish, and we will live free from fear. It
is a beautiful promise—but it is not unconditional. The Torah presents this
vision alongside a profound and revolutionary system for economic justice—the Yovel, the Jubilee Year.
Yovel: The Torah’s
Economic Reset Button
In
today’s terms, the Yovel is like a
factory reset—a complete restoration of original settings. In Biblical times,
when over 90% of the population worked in agriculture, land ownership was the
foundation of economic life. Losing one's land meant losing one's livelihood
and dignity. The Torah ensured that such loss could never be permanent. No
family could be condemned to generational poverty. No oligarchy could ever
permanently control the economy. Through Yovel,
the Torah mandated a national act of compassion—a cycle that sustained social
balance, human dignity, and national unity.
Stages of Descent,
Opportunities for Redemption
Parashat
Behar doesn’t just stop at the macroeconomic scale. It explores, in striking
detail, the personal descent into poverty, marking four distinct stages, each one more desperate than the last:
- Selling one’s
land – the
first sign of distress.
- Borrowing money – the Torah forbids charging
interest, commanding us to lend without profit.
- Selling oneself
to a fellow Jew as a servant – requiring humane treatment and dignity.
- Selling oneself to a non-Jew – the lowest point,
prompting a communal obligation of redemption.
Each
stage begins with the phrase כִּי־יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ (“when your brother becomes
impoverished”), emphasizing not just the individual’s decline but our
responsibility toward him. At every level, the Torah commands us to intervene,
to lift up, to restore—not from pity, but from brotherhood.
“Achicha” – Your Brother
A
remarkable feature of this parasha is
the repeated use of the word “achicha”—your brother. Time and again, the Torah reminds us that those who
fall on hard times are not strangers. They are not burdens. They are our
brothers.
Just
as Yehudah promised his father to be responsible for Binyamin, saying, “I will
be his guarantor” (Genesis 43:9), so too must we take personal responsibility
for one another. This is the foundational ethic of Jewish society—not
competition, but commitment; not survival of the fittest, but upliftment of the
fallen.
The
Rambam adds a deeper dimension
to this idea. He explains that our brotherhood is not merely biological but
spiritual. We are brothers because we are all children of God, bonded by Torah, Shabbat, and mitzvot. Our
unity is rooted in shared purpose and divine mission.
Living in God's Land
The
Torah reminds us that the Land of Israel ultimately does not belong to us—it
belongs to God. We are tenants, stewards entrusted with His land. That
awareness demands a society built not on exploitation but on holiness, not on
greed but on generosity. The Yovel
year is therefore not just economic—it is profoundly spiritual. It is a year of
freedom, of return, of reconnection. It reminds us that liberty, dignity, and
opportunity must be the birthright of every Jew.
A Prophetic Hint: 1948 in
the Torah
There’s
a touching gematria (numerical hint) in the parasha. The Torah says: "וְשַׁבְתֶּם
אִישׁ אֶל־אֲחֻזָּתוֹ וְאִישׁ אֶל־מִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ תָּשֻׁבוּ"—“Each person shall return to his ancestral land, and each to
his family shall you return” (Leviticus 25:10).
The
seemingly redundant final word "תשובו" (you shall return), has a gematria (numerical value) of 708, which corresponds to the Hebrew year 5708 (תש"ח)—the year 1948 in the
Gregorian calendar and the year the State of Israel was established.
This
small detail becomes a monumental reminder: the return to the Land of Israel is
not just a historical event—it is a fulfillment of a divine promise etched into
the Torah itself.
The Ultimate Blessing
Parashat
Behar outlines a society where no one is left behind, where freedom is
regularly restored, and where unity is sacred. If we build such a
society—rooted in responsibility, anchored in Torah, and animated by the spirit
of achicha, your brother—then we
merit the ultimate blessing: to live in the Land of Israel in security,
prosperity, and peace.
May
we continue to witness the unfolding of this vision in our days, and may we
rise to the responsibility it demands of us.
