Behar
Jubilee Year
“For the Land is Mine:” I am the
Lord of the earth and can decide as I please…”For you are strangers and
sojourners with Me” is a different statement calculated to remove the
misconception of an unconditional title to the land God has granted Israel for
an eternal heritage. Hence the Torah
reminds us that although we are…actual citizens of the land we received as an
inheritance to be passed on to our children after us, vis-à-vis God we are
strangers and sojourners, for the earth is the Lord’s. Thus we are but distant strangers whom the
Sovereign permitted to reside in His land, each in his allotted territory. This does not constitute an unqualified title
to the land; indeed, man is like a stranger in this world, his soul descending
from heaven to dwell upon earth…
Naftali Hertz. Weisel
(18th Century)
The counting of the forty nine
years as enjoined by the Torah will prompt people to abstain from
misappropriating or coveting the fields of their neighbors in the knowledge
that all must return to the Divinely appointed
owners. The Jubilee law reminds us of
the kings who periodically confiscate tracts of land from their vassals to
assert their sovereignty. Similarly, God
decreed the restoration of land to the owner god had originally appointed. Thus also all servants are freed in order to
owe allegiance to God alone. But while monarchs act as described so as to keep their vassals in
check, the Almighty’s decree aims at the refinement and welfare of His own
chosen people.
Sefer Hachinukh
(13th Century)
This regime, and there is doubt if
it was ever observed in full, is a powerful program for arranging social
reality according to the Torah…The common element in the…admonitions is that
there is no promise of redemption to follow.
The promise of redemption after the destruction and after the exile is
given in the torah in a different place, in the portion of Nitzvim,
where the return…is dependent on repentance…But the rebuke in our portion,
similar to the rebuke in the portion of Ki Tavo, does not state that the redemption will surely
come…The sages deliberated on the question: “When were the merits of the
patriarchs exhausted?”…And it was the opinion of the greatest Amora’im that the merits of the patriarchs have already
been exhausted. It was through the
merits of our forefathers that we took the Promised Land and it was through our
own sins that we lost it…
Yeshayahu Leibowitz
(20th Century)
All that economic disequilibrium
that developed in the course of time, and which the economist considers to be
the root of all evil, is…but a synonym for deviation and turpitude which call
for rectification. They suppress…the
radiance of the spiritual splendor of the Divine soul that dwells in the
nation, and the nature of those deeds dim the resplendent
light of its splendor. For the supreme
purpose of reaching the nearness of God, He gave the Shabbat to every
individual; the 7th year was decreed, prohibiting use of the land
and renunciation of ownership of its produce; and the laws of Jubilee… were
given…in order to rectify all deviations of the past and to imbue the nation
with the spirit of forbearance and repentance…
Nechama Leibowitz
(20th Century)