Possessing and Sharing

This week’s Torah portion is Behar, which means, on the Mountain. Behar asks us to observe a Sabbath for the land every seven years, and a Jubilee, every 50th year. At the Jubilee, the land was to return to its original, ancestral owners, slaves were freed, loans were forgiven, and liberty was proclaimed for all inhabitants, the sentence inscribed on our Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Then there are laws to prevent poverty, such as the necessity to buy back land that was sold out of dire economic need, and the responsibility to help a relative or any person in the community, who becomes impoverished. This portion contains a number of interesting concepts that stress kindness, charity, integrity, and also trust in God. At the beginning of this portion the Torah says “But on the seventh year there shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for God. Your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune. The aftergrowth of your harvest you shall not reap and the grapes you shall not pick.” Rashi comments that, “you shall not reap” means “to take possession like other harvests, rather it shall be ownerless for all (to take freely).

This comment about ownership introduces a theme that runs throughout this portion. Later the Torah says, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine, for you are sojourners and residents with me.” And later, with regard to indentured servitude, in the case of one who becomes poor, we are commanded not to work each other with slave labor. God says, “for they are my servants who I have taken out of the land of Egypt, they shall not be sold as the selling of a slave.”

We humans are acquisitive and possessive, not always in a bad way. Some things we have are necessities: a place to live, savings for the future, food to eat, money to spend in the course of living. Our possessions help us to feel secure, but this Torah portion brings to the fore a larger truth: we are just passing through. As we say toward the beginning of the Amidah, Ayl Elyon, v'koneh hakol: God on high, who owns everything. We might think that if God owns everything, that God would want to distribute all wealth and resources equally, in a kind of exquisite Divine communism. But we know that this isn't the way God structured the world. Some are happy with a little; some are only happy with much more. Behar's solution to the inequality is to emphasize some larger truths and command us to share and help each other, giving us a gift: the opportunity to perform mitzvahs, deed of loving kindness for each other.

In the seventh year, no one can sell any crops. Everyone can come and eat whatever has grown on its own, and there will be enough for all. No one will be hungry. No one should be allowed to amass all the land. We are commanded to strengthen the poor and we should not own each other. The commentary Sifra says, “for they are my servants and so should not be subject to my other servants.” This leads us to another truth: our possessiveness – the desire to hold onto things, goes against the natural order. Our lives flow, money and possessions flow; very little is fixed. My teacher, Rabbi Gelberman said, “if you can lose it you never had it to begin with.”

We are not here to have, to acquire, or to amass. We are here to serve, to give and to share, nurturing & engendering life, being good stewards of the gifts we have been given: the earth, our physical selves, our souls. Serving, giving, sharing make us happy, and add holy energy to the world, enriching it and creating plenty for all. Rabbi Plaut, in his Torah commentary, points out that the word for the Sabbath of the land, Shemitah, comes from the root to let something drop. We can let go of a need to control and possess, which block the coming of the future, by allowing the flow of energy to ebb and flow in our lives. May the energy that flows toward us be for the good and may we by our actions and choices help and strengthen one another.