Double Parsha Behar-Bechukotai (Leviticus 25-27)

Double Parsha: Behar-Bechukotai

Day#2: Leviticus 25:19-28

(Study Notes)

(Leviticus 25:19)

HaKadosh Baruch Hu opens today’s portion by reiterating a promised blessing that He will provide if His Jewish people will keep our vows when we are in the Holy Promised Land. The promise proclaimed by HaKadosh Baruch Hu:

We see this one promised blessing has three specific parts;

1. The land will yield its fruits: the land will bloom with abundant produce so that the Jews will thrive. We stated in a previous lesson that promised land was originally cursed when Has first sinned against Noah. As a cursed land, Zion, in general is arid, dry desert. For most people who have ever possessed the land, nothing grows. But, with the Jewish people, the land miraculously responds, in accordance with HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s promises. When we keep mitzvot, the Holy Land blossoms abundantly—a sign of Hashem’s Deity and the truth of His word alone.

2. You will eat your fill: the harvest in Zion will be so abundant, all famine will end. Every Jewish person will have physical security and food security.

3. You will live in security: another promised blessing is supernatural protection from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, which ushers in security against all of our enemies. Attacks will be thwarted before they begin. Wars against Zion will cease and desist. There will be no breaches in our borders nor the walls of our cities nor Temple, when it will be rebuilt.

In the days of moshiach, these blessings are promised to come at an unprecedented level. When only HaKadosh Baruch Hu will reign, so too will only Torah and mitzvot-keeping reign because of the teaching and spirit of understanding that He will grant to all humanity. Thus, with unending mitzvot-keeping will come unending blessings of field, of yield, of harvest.

The abundance is promised to be so vast that everyone will be called to “come buy, eat, and drink without money.”—toil will cease, and Shabbat rest will ensue. This rest will be from labor, famine, sorrow, pain, death, and all forms of suffering will end (globally, for all people).

All Jews will be gathered back to Zion, which is why she will respond so abundantly. No Jew will be left behind anywhere in the world—every single member of the lost 10 tribes will be found, turned back to Judaism, and brought back to Zion in glory. As we learned in the Haftara of Amos 9:13-15, all wars will end and all Jews will live in Zion, securely, never to leave again.

The Jubilee year is like the days of moshiach in miniature and the sabbatical year every 7^th  year holds remnants of the days of moshiach as well.

(Leviticus 25:21-23)

HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells His people through Moshe Rabbeinu (from Mt. Sinai), not to worry about what we will eat in the 7^th year, when we let our lands lay fallow. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says we need not worry because He promises that He will bless our harvests so abundantly in the 6^th year that we will have enough in our store houses to last for three years. Specifically, HaKadosh Baruch Hu promises that the food He supplies will last through the seventh year, on in to the eighth as our new crops are growing, and that we will still be earning from the storehouse on into the ninth year as the new harvest becomes ready to bring in.

(Leviticus 25:23-24)

HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes clear hat all of Zion is His, we Jews are but “stranger residents with Him.”

As stated previously, given that the above statement is true, any land that a Jewish Israelite has in the Holy Land must be treated as if it is HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s. We cannot do with it whatever we please. Rather, we are to treat it as land mutually invested in as part of our loving marriage relationship. We honor our relationship by keeping our vows; in response, the land gives fruit as promised. When we respect our vows, the Maker of those vows blesses us in return.

THEREFORE, HaKadosh Baruch Hu decrees:

If we connect this passage with other lessons we have learned regarding redemption, we can understand that redemption becomes necessary when sin is rampant. With regards to the land of Zion, redemption means that Jews are in exile, the land lays fallow—or is at least not as abundant as it could be (which none of us can really even fathom—when she is at full bloom, no one will comprehend the absence; we’ve not ever seen anything like what is promised).

When HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that the Jewish people must provide for the redemption of the land, this does mean monetarily (as we will learn below). But, providing for the redemption also means performing teshuvah—for the Redeemer (HaKadosh Baruch Hu) is promised to come to those in Yaakov Avinu who perform teshuvah. With Teshuvah, Zion is restored; her children are brought home; she will bloom like never before.

As we await the final redemption, therefore, we are to act as HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s counterparts among our fellow Jews and among the people of the world.

(Leviticus 25:25)

If one of our fellow Jews is so poor that he or she has to sell part of his or her holdings (land in Zion or other possessions) then the nearest kinsman to the one who sold their holdings must come and redeem (buy back) what his or her kinsman had to sell.

This command relates to later laws in Numbers about marrying within one’s tribe so that the possessions of each tribe will not be lost (even to a fellow Jew).

(Leviticus 25:26-27)

HaKadosh Baruch Hu declares that if the poor person has no one to redeem his or her possessions, then he or she can redeem their own possessions if he or she becomes wealthy enough to buy back what he or she originally sold.

When buying back (redeeming) one’s own possessions, we should compute the number of years since the sale and the difference should be refunded and the holdings returned.

(Leviticus 25:28)

If the poor person has no redeemer AND does not prosper enough to redeem his or her own sold possessions, then what he or she sold must remain with the one who purchased it until the jubilee. BUT in the year of the jubilee, the sold possessions of the Jew must be released and returned to the poor  Jew without stipulation.

These laws have a greater spiritual significance with regards to redemption. If we think of spiritual poverty, when Jews have little emunah, or we turn away from HaKadosh Baruch Hu and follow after the ways of the world, we may sell our souls to false gods, false promises, and false hopes.

If a Jew sees such a situation in their own family, then the Jew must try to redeem their kinsman by calling out their loved-ones & calling for teshuvah. If the person who strayed becomes wealthy enough spirituality to realize his or her own deeds, a Jew can redeem themselves through teshuvah. We will still pay the price for the time we spend walking apart from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but in the end our part and holdings in the Jewish global community will be returned to us as if we never started or sold ourselves to begin with.

If however, a Jew sold him or herself to the ways of this world and do not merit enough Jewish emunah to return to the Jewish people, then the person must stay with the goyim until the final Redemption. BUT at the time of the redemption, the Jew will be released from the goyim and brought back into the fold of the Jewish people—indeed this is the promise that HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes in passages such as Hosea 2:20-35, where He promises to take us all back and marry us as Negev land. Without brideprice, without enough merit, we are still His—His beloved, who He chose from eternity past. Because of His election, all Jews, no matter how spiritually poor or rich, remain His. He never wrote a decree of divorce—only a temporary decree of separation.

Cut out does not necessarily mean cut off for a Jew. HaKadosh Baruch Hu promises that in the end He will affect the change He desires in each and every child He has created. The details are perhaps best left to Him, but we can get the idea of what change will occur from Ezekiel 36.

For the global Jewish population, HaKadosh Baruch Hu also promises that redemption can come in one of two ways:

1. We will have enough merit to bring redemption ourselves. Meaning enough Jews performed enough teshuvah and  performed enough mitzvot that the days of moshiach will hasten its coming. If redemption comes in this way, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will shorten the birth pangs and make the arrival of redemption be glorious and full of miracles.

2. If we do not have enough merit to bring redemption ourselves, then there will be longer and greater birth pangs, there will be more wars, more antisemitism, more pain, more suffer. Redemption will be ling in its coming, but it will come, nonetheless, for all Jews. Moshiach will come, but he will arrive like Saul—the king coming on an ass, not in glory.

(Note: there are false claims of a false god that say he is the Jew’s messiah, proven because he came riding in on a donkey. We know this is not our messiah (our anointed king from Dav’s line), because our messiah will cause all wars to end, the temple to be built and remain standing for eternity, and will gather in all Jews to Zion, not commission them to leave Zion, leave Jerusalem, nor leave the presence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.)

Given the amount of suffering in the Jewish world, and the world at large, moshiach has not arrived. The birthpangs are real. These should be signs for Jews to perform teshuvah and help fellow Jews as much as we are able. For if we fail to help each other, HaKadosh Baruch Hu might fail to help us and remain long in His coming, God forbid. But if we each do our part, perhaps HaKadosh Baruch Hu will be pleased and merit us worthy to hasten the redemption.

May we see the final Jubilee speedily in our days, to Hashem’s glory!

Am Ysrael Chai!

Kimberly Davis