Behar - Bejukotai 5777 - English

Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik

Congregacion Kol Shearith Israel

In Parashat Behar, the first part of the double portion for this week, we find one of the most revolutionary laws in the entire Torah: Shnat Hayovel, the year of the Jubilee, the fiftieth year.  

This year was the culmination (or the beginning, according to some exegetes) of a cycle of seven periods of seven years, as the Torah says (Lev. 25:8-9): “And you shall count for yourself seven sabbatical years, seven years seven times. And the days of these seven sabbatical years shall amount to forty-nine years for you. You shall proclaim [with] the shofar blasts, in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month…”

This powerful Shofar blast ends up giving a name to the year. The work Yovel appears as a synonym of Shofar in the book of Shmot (Exodus 19:13): “When the yovel sounds a long, drawn out blast, they may ascend the mountain.”

Going back to the particularities of Shnat Hayovel, like our Parashah explains, the land rested on this year (same as on the sabbatical), all Israeli slaves were freed, and land was returned to its original owners. 

As a side note, one of the verses from our Parashah on this topic, “proclaim freedom [for slaves] throughout the land for all who live on it” (Lev. 25:10), is engraved on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, which was rung to summon the citizens for the reading of the United States declaration of independence. The bell and the verse constitute a symbol of freedom and struggle against slavery.

We can assume that the motivation of the Jubilee year was to return society to a certain balance in its economic dynamic, avoiding the creation of large estates and the accumulation of wealth, as well as giving each family the chance of a new start. However, in the biblical text, except for one specific mention in the book of Numbers (36:4) on the Jubilee year, we have no further proof that it was ever implemented. The classic prophets mention the liberation of the slaves but it is not linked to any specific dates or associated to the laws of the Jubilee. 

Beyond the question of its real impact on people’s lives throughout the centuries, the Yovel did leave a mark on our language. From that same root, we get the words “jubilation” (extreme joy associated to the blast of the Shofar) and “retired” [in Spanish called “jubilado”] (possibly from the culmination of a life of work at the age of 50). However, as someone once told me, in our times, jubilation and retired do not go together. It may be true, but that is another story.

I would not want to leave out a significant concept that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks includes in his book Lessons on Leadership. In his commentary on the Parashah, he points out the connection between the 49 years to reach the Shnat Hayovel and the 49 days of the Omer that lead to Shavuot, which appear in Parashat Emor.

Referencing the Talmud (Menachot 65b), Sacks explains that the difference between both mitzvot lies in the fact that the Count of the Omer is in plural: ‘you shall count seven complete weeks. You shall count fifty days…’ (Lev. 23:15-16), which is why this mitzvah must be performed by every Jew; while the Count of the Yovel is in singular form, ‘you shall count for yourself seven sabbatical years…’ (Lev. 25:8), hence the obligation falls only on the Beit Din, on the Rabbinic Tribunal, and not each individual.

Rabbi Sacks finds a valuable message in this subtle difference: as people we count the days, but as leaders we must count the years.

Those of us who are leaders –in any field–, have the obligation of looking beyond the immediate, the short-term. Let us try, then, to project our view onto the horizon, to use the high beams, and think always about the of the future implications of our current decisions.

Shabbat Shalom. 

Gustavo