When one day makes a difference

The Destiny Foundation contains a treasure trove of divrei Torah, insights and words of wisdom from Rabbi Wein. Here's one to share on the topic of our shortest Chag.

Here in Israel Shavuot is a one-day holiday. Since many stay up all night on Shavuot and therefore spend a great deal of the day sleeping off the night’s study session, the chag really whizzes by. This really does not allow for much true contemplation of the holiday and its intended message and long-lasting influence upon us. 

We all know that Shavuot marks the granting of the Torah to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai, though the biblical names for Shavuot, which appear in the Torah itself, do not specifically reflect this truth. The reality of the holiday is not easily absorbed in so short a period of time as one day. After all, we savor Pesach but it takes a week to do so—and the same is true for Succot which lasts eight days. 

When I lived in the United States, the second day of Shavuot was one of my favorite days of the year. I appreciated the wisdom of Jewish tradition in extending the holidays for Jews living in the Diaspora. But, living now in Israel, with its one-day holiday of Shavuot, it has forced me to consider the import of the holiday in a less leisurely manner than before. 

Although there is no second day of Shavuot here, the aftermath of Shavuot nevertheless can and should wield an influence upon us, on our attitudes, behavior and beliefs. If it does not, the holiday itself, passing in a blur, loses its sense of importance and relevance and becomes a wasted opportunity. 

Dealing with the Torah is not a one-time situation. Perhaps this is the reason behind the Torah not emphasizing Shavuot as the anniversary of its being granted to the Jewish people on Sinai all those years ago. Torah is “our life and the length of our days.” It really therefore has no anniversary or commemorative day for it is the constant factor in the life of Jews. 

The Torah is a continuous guide and challenge in our everyday life, always demanding and probing into our innermost thoughts and outward behavior and lifestyle. It does not allow for vacations and negligence, societal correctness and sloppy thinking. Our teacher Moshe stated in his famous psalm that life itself passes by as in a blur, much like the holiday of Shavuot does. Without focus and purpose, dedication and fortitude, life itself resembles a lost opportunity. 

Shavuot’s message therefore truly lies in its aftermath and not so much in its one-day of commemoration. In Temple times, Shavuot, so to speak, was extended for another week to allow the holiday offerings of individuals to be brought upon the Temple’s altar. 

There was a conscious effort by Torah law to impress upon the Jews the continuity of Shavuot, with the deep understanding that, out of all of the holidays of the year, it was the one that never quite ends. It was and is the source of “our lives and the length of our days.” Shavuot is only one day out of 365 but its true commemoration extends to the other 364 days of the year as well. 

I have often remarked that Shavuot is the forgotten holiday for many Jews in the Diaspora. Its almost complete disappearance from Jewish life outside of the observant Orthodox community has become the symbol of the ravages of assimilation, intermarriage and alienation that plague the modern Jew who has little self-identity and abysmal ignorance of Torah and its values. 

Here in Israel all Israelis are aware of Shavuot, even those who only honor it in its breach. So the Torah and its influence is still a vital part of Jewish life here. The study of Torah and Jewish subjects of interest on the night of Shavuot here cuts across all lines and groupings in Israeli society. Secular and religious, Charedi and Reform, synagogues and community centers—all have all night learning sessions on the night of Shavuot. So Torah has an effect upon all here, naturally in varying degrees of knowledge and attitude. 

In the Diaspora, Shavuot is simply ignored by many Jews and thus it cannot have any continuity in the lives and value systems of those Jews. It is difficult to see how this situation can be materially changed in the near future. Yet Shavuot has always somehow been able to produce its magic on the people of Israel. We should therefore be most grateful that the Lord has extended to us a year-long and eternal Shavuot.

Royalty v Chaos

 

Here's a timely debut blogpost by one of our newest members, Rabbi Steven Ettinger--live wire, author and tax lawyer. Thanks, Steve, for shedding some fresh light on the impending chag of Shavuot.

As with most of our religious practices, there are no straight answers, or more accurately, there are scores of alternative answers. Take, for example, the reading of Megillat Rut on Shavuot. Why do we read it? A recent search on Chabad.org provided a list of eight reasons and I am sure one could find sixty-two more.

First up on the list is the one that speaks most poignantly to me, that Shavuot is the day of birth and passing of Dovid Hamelech. The denouement of Megillat Rut leads into his birth. However, looking more closely, one can find a much deeper connection between this work and the life of Dovid: there is a character linked both to his rise and to his later near demise. She appears briefly; however, her character, actions and impact are significantly more far-reaching. Thematically, she influences the very conflict that envelopes us and our country today.

After Machlon and Chilion die in Moav, Naomi decides to return to Israel.  Her daughters-in-law Rut and Orpah initially accompany her. After a short while, she implores them to remain in Moav, but they are steadfast in their loyalty to her.  Back and forth they go, until Orpah finally relents -- but Rut perseveres.

It does not seem that Orpah is judged harshly. Just the opposite. The Talmud (Sota 42b) brings three opinions to support the “reward” she received for one of the following: kissing Naomi four times, shedding four tears, or accompanying her four mil upon their separation.

Chazal explain that although she was barren, Orpah merited to be the mother (or perhaps ancestor) of Goliath and three other giants (mighty warriors) that we find in Sefer Shmuel (see 2 Shmuel 21: 18-22). Goliath, of course, is identified with the revelation of Dovid’s destined greatness. Another of these giants, Ishbi, nearly kills Dovid, as recounted in an elaborate aggadah in Sanhedrin (95a).  It is interesting to note that, in this tale, Dovid is saved because Avishai ben Zeruiah kills Orpah and then subsequently is able to kill Ishbi by distracting him with news of her death.  Thus Orpah and her progeny are not mere antagonists but their destinies are intertwined with those of Dovid.

Circling back to Megilat Rut and Shavuot and its connection to Dovid Hamelech, how is Orpah still relevant to our contemporary story? Does she continue to play a role in the destiny of “Dovid v’zaroh?”

The simple reading of the story presented two similar and compassionate women – differentiated by one small action. One remained with Naomi and one returned home. However, as the story unfolded, through time and the eyes of Chazal, there was a divergence. One woman, Rut, became the symbol of purity and beauty. She was the mother of royalty of the hero. The other, Orpah , devolves into an ugly, deceitful person who is the mother of those who threaten the hero and Israel’s very existence.

The moment Orpah walked away was no mere familial split; it represented the separation of the values of Moav from those of Yehudah. The contrast between Rut and Orpah – and later between their descendants -- represents an existential struggle between tribes and nations. This is ultimately the contrast between good and evil -- moral and the immoral.  That separation occurred at the very moment Rut declared “Amech ami,  v’Elokaich Elokai” –words that represented her acceptance of the Torah and its obligations – values that Orpah could not assimilate.

The cults of death, the immoral, the haters, the ones we battle every day are the ones who walked away with Orpah . They chose and continue to choose to reject the opportunity accept and constantly reaffirm of the ethic of the Brit of Matan Torah, that runs through Rut and Dovid and their actions, that will assure us of victory.

Rising Moon, by Moshe Miller (Book of the Month, Sivan 5785)

With Shavuot fast approaching, our Book of the Month for Rosh Chodesh Sivan is Rabbi Moshe Miller's Rising Moon. What's it about? Here's a handy synopsis, drawn from one of the websites from which Rising Moon can be purchased: 

Ruth, a princess of Moab, leaves her homeland, along with Naomi and Orpah, after suffering terrible losses to become the mother of the royal house of Israel. Now, in a revolutionary reading of the Book of Ruth, Moshe Miller provides an entirely new perspective on this beloved story. 

Beneath the simple surface of the Book of Ruth, the Sages trace a web of primal issues, including the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; the jealousy of Cain; the painful break between Abraham and Lot; and the mystery that is the mitzvah of yibum. The fiber that binds together all these issues is the theme of love. Love is the key to this story, which culminates in the unique love of Ruth and Boaz, the ancestors of the once and future king, David, whose very name means love! 

Don't let this synopsis lure you into thinking it's just a romantic rendition of one of Tanach's most moving episodes. With a subtitle that reads "unravelling the book of Ruth", it is presented as a drama in four acts and turns out to be an ingenious and textually sensitive analysis of a Megillah that we know so well that we don't stop to ask ourselves if we can't get to know it a little better.

You can borrow this book from Beit Knesset Hanassi's downstairs library.

Yerushalayim: A Gift, a Miracle, a Calling

Fifty-seven years ago, three words were broadcast that changed the destiny of the Jewish people:

 Har HaBayit BeYadeinu (“The Temple Mount is in our hands”).

Those words, uttered during the dramatic liberation of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, did more than describe a military achievement. They announced a spiritual and national turning point, one that reverberates to this day in the heart of every Jew around the world. Rabbi Paul Bloom tells us all about this momentous event.

  The Date That Was Always Destined

This week, we celebrate Yom Yerushalayim, 28 Iyar—a day whose significance was known to Chazal and noted in the writings of Rishonim centuries before 1967. In fact, the Tur (Orach Chaim 580) mentions this day as the yahrzeit of Shmuel HaNavi, the prophet who laid the spiritual foundations for Jerusalem's destiny. In Megillat Ta’anit it is marked as a significant day long before modern history added a new chapter.

 Nothing is coincidental in Jewish history. That the reunification of Jerusalem happened on the yahrzeit of the very prophet who instructed David HaMelech about the future location of the Beit HaMikdash is no mere historical curiosity—it is the unfolding of divine orchestration. Shmuel taught David where the House of God was to be built, and it was David who conquered Yerushalayim and set the stage for his son Shlomo to build the Mikdash. 

 A Dream Reawakened 

For two thousand years, Jerusalem was a dream. A hope. A prayer. Generations of Jews faced its direction, cried over its ruins, and longed for its rebuilding. Even King David, as he wrote in Tehillim, stood outside its gates dreaming of a day he would see it whole and vibrant.

 Then came 1967

 In what can only be described as a miraculous turn of events, Israeli forces—led by commanders who never imagined they’d set foot in the Old City—found themselves standing at the Kotel, the Western Wall, having retaken the heart of Yerushalayim. The spiritual and emotional power of that moment cannot be overstated. In the words of the Gemara in Niddah:

  "Ein ba’al hanes makir b’niso" – *One in the midst of a miracle often doesn’t recognize it.*

 Many didn’t realize it then, and still don’t today. But the truth is, we were—and are—witnesses to a miracle of national rebirth. Yerushalayim was not just a city reclaimed—it was the Jewish soul reawakened.

  A New Jewish Identity

 Before 1967, many Jews in the Diaspora experienced their Jewish identity as something to hide or survive. But after the Six-Day War, something shifted. Jewish pride surged. Even Jews who had been distant from Torah and mitzvot felt a stirring. The return to Yerushalayim became a symbol of resilience, of purpose, of connection.

 Natan Sharansky recalls that for Soviet Jews, their Jewishness had always meant persecution. Suddenly, after Yerushalayim was reunited, it meant pride. Hope. Belonging.

 This national pride ignited the Ba’al Teshuva movement, brought waves of Aliyah, and inspired even secular Jews to reconnect with their heritage. Jews in Rio, in Melbourne, in Johannesburg and Paris began to walk with a different posture—because Yerushalayim was ours again. It gave us all a center of gravity.

  A City of Connection

 Yerushalayim is not just a capital city. It is the ultimate makom hachibur—a place of connection. Between heaven and earth. Between Jew and Jew. Between past and future. It is the place where Avraham Avinu bound Yitzchak, where he named the location "Hashem Yir’eh"—the first half of the word Yerushalayim. Later, Malki-Tzedek, called it "Shalem." The Midrash teaches that Yerushalayim is the union of those two names: Yir’eh and Shalem. Fear and wholeness. Vision and peace.

 In this city, the Torah of Hashem and the faith of Avraham combine. It is here that the nations will one day say:

 "Ki mitziyon teitzei Torah, u’dvar Hashem miYerushalayim"

“From Zion shall come forth Torah, and the word of God from Jerusalem.”* (Yeshayahu 2:3)

 Yerushalayim is the city where all of Israel would gather three times a year, where tribes with different customs and perspectives united in a common purpose. This is the power of Yerushalayim shel matah—to give us a taste of Yerushalayim shel ma’alah.

  A War That Shouldn’t Have Happened

 And yet, this miracle only unfolded because of another inexplicable decision: King Hussein of Jordan, who could have remained neutral, instead chose to enter a war already lost. Deceived by Nasser’s propaganda, he attacked—and thus opened the path for the IDF to liberate East Jerusalem, Yehudah, and Chevron.

 Had he chosen differently, Yerushalayim might still be divided. The Kotel might still be behind barbed wire. The Har HaBayit might still be inaccessible.

 But Hashem had other plans.

  A Day to Remember

 This Monday, on 28 Iyar, we mark Yom Yerushalayim. It is not just a day of military triumph. It is a day of divine intervention, of national rebirth, of spiritual awakening.

 We remember the miraculous victories, the planes that flew untouched through skies thick with Soviet-made missiles. We remember the fear of impending annihilation, just 22 years after the Holocaust—and the utter, divine reversal of expectations.

 And we remember the yahrzeit of Shmuel HaNavi, who envisioned it all and gave David HaMelech the tools to begin this eternal journey.

 And just   as we  saw  great miracles during the Six  Day War and the  reclaiming of all of  Jerusalem, we see great miracles in our current battle with evil. We  hope and  pray that our current battle  will lead to something  even greater  than what happened in 1967.

 Yerushalayim Is Our Future

 Let us never take Yerushalayim for granted. Let us not be blind to the "nissim" unfolding in our time. Let us recognize the spiritual power of this city, the dream of generations realized in our own days.

 Yerushalayim is not just history—it is destiny.

And it is calling to us still.

On the buses

 Some of us rarely if ever put themselves into the hands of Jerusalem's legendary bus service. Others of us, the more adventurous and outgoing kind, use buses whenever we can. Love them or loathe them, our buses are very much part of the fabric of everyday life in the Capital. Our member Zev Hochberg shares with us here a few of his personal experiences.

As a recent newcomer, I’ve been amused by some “only in Israel” moments on bus rides around Jerusalem.

We’re all family!

On a quiet bus ride, a teenage girl is sitting at the window seat; an older man is sitting on the aisle. In walks another teenage girl; the girls notice each other, and after a few moments the second girl approaches the older man and says something quietly to him. He gets up and moves to a nearby seat; she sits down next to her friend, and they chat away. All is calm—until an older woman sitting nearby turns to the girl and sternly, but also lovingly, says “שעשית מה יפה לא זה” (“You haven’t acted nicely”).

The girl protests her innocence, the man says he was happy to get up and let the friends ride together—but the old woman is having none of it. She continues her mussar for a while. But when she gets up to leave the bus, she approaches the girls, gets in a last few words with a big smile, and you can see that she’s just barely restraining herself from giving them a grandmotherly pinch on the cheek!

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

They grow up so fast here

As the bus pulls up to the stop, a very self-assured looking little girl (maybe 10 years old) calls out יורדים אנחנו (“we’re getting off”), and proceeds to hold the rear door open while her little sister (maybe 8), then her littler sister (no more than 6) and finally her littlest sister (around 2 or 3) file off the bus, whereupon she begins to march the whole group home.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this story?

On a bus in Ramot, a very harried looking man in traditional religious garb gets on, and questions me about the bus’s destination. I answer, and he calms down. A while later, a bus inspector enters and starts to check that everyone has paid their fare. The man turns to me and says: “Two minutes ago a miracle happened to me”.

He pauses. I nod encouragingly to him to continue, and he explains. In his confusion about the bus’s destination when he boarded, he had forgotten to pay—until suddenly, literally moments before the inspector entered, he somehow remembered.

Ah, I ask, is the fine very large? No, he explains, you don’t understand. it’s not about the fine. Can you imagine the terrible chillul Hashem if I hadn’t remembered to pay? A man such as himself, with a long white beard and large black hat.

Indeed, it was even more than a miracle, he elaborated: it was a gilui shechinah, a revelation of the Divine Presence—that’s what it was! God was so concerned about the desecration of His great name that He caused the man to remember to pay!

The man continues in this vein—and expatiates at even greater length when a yeshiva bochur gets on the bus and provides the man with an appreciative audience.

Part of me cannot fail to be moved by the enormous quantity of emunah on display. Another part of me wanders what he’s been smoking. But a large part of me really wanted to ask him if any of his grandsons serve in the army and then to point out gently what an opportunity for a kiddush Hashem that could be.

In praise of Jerusalem -- and the day that celebrates it

Some years ago, Koren Publishers released a unique liturgical work dedicated to Yom Ha’atzma’ut and Yom Yerushalayim. Among its essays, one written by Rabbi Berel Wein, titled simply “Yom Yerushalayim,” explores the holiness and historic significance of the events that occurred on this day.  The following is an edited version of that essay.

It is strange to have to write an essay on the importance and meaning of Jerusalem. If there is ever anything in Jewish life that was self-understood — axiomatic and integral to Jewish societal and personal life and consciousness — it is the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish soul. “Next year in Jerusalem!” is not simply an expression of hope, prayer, and longing, but a symbol of Jewish defiance and continuity.

In Jewish thought and society, Jerusalem, not Rome, is the Eternal City; Jerusalem, not Paris, is the City of Lights. The great Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen of Dvinsk, at the beginning of the 20th century, wrote prophetically: “Woe to those who somehow think that Berlin is Jerusalem!”

Jerusalem may have had many imitators, but it had no replacements. Jerusalem remained the heart of the Jewish people just as Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi of 12th-century Spain insisted that the people of Israel was the heart of all humanity — the strongest of all human organs and yet the most vulnerable. The metaphor that all the lifeblood of Jewish life is pumped throughout the Jewish world by the heart of Jerusalem was self-understood in past Jewish generations. It needed no explanation or repetition, no reinforcement or defensive justification.

Even when the Jewish people as a whole were physically and politically separated from Jerusalem, the city was not just a memory or nostalgia; it remained a real and imposing presence in Jewish life and thought. If to some individual Jews it became just another imaginary place because of its distant location and unattractive reality — an old, small, poverty-ridden, dilapidated, backwater buried within the expanse of the Ottoman Empire — in the core Jewish soul, the reality of the city lived and thrived.

Over the past three centuries, Jews slowly have made their way back home to Jerusalem. Under terrible physical trials of privation, persecution, and derision, the Jewish community in Jerusalem grew. By the middle of the 19th century, Jews constituted the majority population in the city. They began to settle outside the walls of the Old City and establish new neighborhoods. The ancient mother city responded to the return of its children to its holy precincts, and Jerusalem became alive again.

After the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in parts of the Land of Israel, Jerusalem became the capital of the State of Israel. Its population has grown exponentially, while cranes and diggers are ubiquitous throughout the city’s expanded boundaries.

After the Six-Day War the city was reunited, and the Western Wall and its adjacent Temple Mount have become once again the center of the Jewish world. A new special day was added to the Jewish calendar to mark the rebirth of the physical Jerusalem in Jewish life and prayer. The Jewish population has grown, and the building of the infrastructure of the city continues apace. The mixed blessings of automobile traffic and constant construction projects affect all Jerusalemites, but they only serve to highlight the unimagined change in the face of the city that has occurred over the past century. Jerusalem reborn is the miracle of our times.

But much of the world resents Jerusalem’s revival. The United Nations wants it to become an “international city,” though the rebuilding of the city worked, and there never has been such successful city management in all human history. No one really seemed to notice the hard fortunes of the city until the Jews began to remake history there.

The Muslim world especially, which had little concern for the fate and fortunes of the city until the Jews returned to rebuild it, wants it to be exclusively Muslim dominated and populated. Many countries do not recognize united Jerusalem as being part of Israel, let alone as its capital city. And even since October 7 most of the latent and obvious anti-Semitism that still poisons the Western world is directed against Israel and Jerusalem.

In their frustration, jealousy, and misplaced religious fervor, Muslim hardliners have encouraged and perpetrated violence in Jerusalem and publicly celebrate the killing of its innocent inhabitants. The attitude seems to be, “Better no Jerusalem than a Jewish Jerusalem.” Jerusalem has always been a flashpoint as its key place in history and in many faiths make it a sensitive issue.

Jerusalem possesses the eternal quality of focusing human attention to think about holiness, closeness, and the struggle for faith. This view of what Jerusalem is all about makes the celebration of Yom Yerushalayim the necessary Jewish response to the opposition and enmity of the world to Jerusalem — to a Jewish Jerusalem.

Yom Yerushalayim is the proper response of Jews to everything that is currently going on in the world. Rejoice in the fact that our generations have lived to see Jerusalem rebuilt in body and spirit, beauty and strength. Walk its streets and breathe its air, see its visions and bask in its memories. Let us appreciate the gifts that the Lord has granted us, and express our thanks for living in such a momentous and historic time.

That is what Yom Yerushalayim represents. That is why it is so special and sacred. That is why it is worthy of commemoration and celebration.

The Promise of Security, the Path of Brotherhood

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

Every 50 years, the nation of Israel hits a spiritual and economic "reset." Land is returned to its ancestral owners. Those who have sold themselves into servitude are set free. Debts are cancelled. The entire structure of inequality is dissolved, and the people start anew.

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:

1. Selling one’s land – the first sign of distress.
   
   
2. Borrowing money – the Torah forbids charging interest, commanding us to lend without profit.
   
   
3. Selling oneself to a fellow Jew as a servant – requiring humane treatment and dignity.
   
   
4. 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.