Behar

With God's help, you and I begin today to study the weekly portion Behar, and we will read from verse 1 of chapter 25.

Why does such an unexpected specification suddenly appear here – Mount Sinai? The laws that will be discussed further on are connected with the life of the people in the land of Israel and must be passed on to the generation that will enter the land of Israel, but at the same time they were given to Moshe on Mount Sinai. From this we can draw the conclusion that much of what the Most High said to Moshe was said on Mount Sinai. And Moshe teaches the people at the time when the people are disposed to learn precisely these laws, and consequently not all the laws are written down in the order in which they were given. Moshe as a teacher has the right to decide: how, when and which laws to pass on, the main thing – to pass them on in perfect form.

We suddenly learn that the Sabbath is not only a commandment that is given to a person, but that a Sabbath (shabbát) must also be kept in the working of the land, and this is about precisely the land of Israel; these are not the laws that are in force in the desert. Usually the laws connected with the land of Israel have such an addition as we read here: ki tavóu el-ha'áretz – when you come into the land.

How then will the land keep Sabbath? This is very similar to the commandment about the Sabbath that was given to us.

A vineyard needs its long vines to be pruned, so that the grape juice does not potentially go into fruitless vines. For this it is pruned, and the grapes become larger, juicier (the details can be learned from those who work with grapes, I am speaking about this in general terms).

Sefíyach (accretion) – this is something residual, added on. When we have reaped the wheat at the end of the sixth year and did not sow it in the seventh year (or in the process of the natural ripening of the wheat), some grains could fall onto the ground and sprout. That is as far as wheat is concerned. And if we are talking about vineyards or about trees, they can produce fruit: it is clear that a fig tree or a date tree does not know at all that this is the seventh year, and produces fruit as usual. And so what has ripened in the seventh year may not be gathered for oneself. Even though we do not sow this vineyard and do not prune it, we guard it, we cannot give it over to someone to be ravaged. This vineyard is ours, and that is why it is called the vineyard that we keep. The grapes in it are not ours, we cannot gather them. But there is a certain, very important feature.

What does this mean? You cannot reap this field and put the grain into your storehouse, but every day you, the owner, and anyone else from your people, from those who live with you, can come to the field and take for himself what is needed for today's daily sustenance; one may gather for two meals each day. Special guards were appointed over the field. We can see a hint of this in the book of Rut: there were young men there who watched over the gatherers of ears of grain. Here, even though the field was not harvested, there were people who were responsible for the safety of this field, so that barbarians would not ravage it, would not burn it, so that no one would attack. And every person (anyone who wished, including the owner himself) could come to the field and take two handfuls of grain, what is necessary for sustenance for that day. The owner in this case had no advantage at all. It, this field, belongs to no one, and only on such a basis does the owner have the right to use it, to dispose of it.

That is, the animals too may not be restricted in food. So, the Torah commands that every seventh year the land must keep Sabbath. There are many commentators who try to explain why this law was given. There are rational reasons: the land must rest, it needs rest so that it does not become exhausted. Periodically the land must be given rest, and therefore the Most High commanded a Sabbath for the land once every seven years. Other commentators say: the LORD arranged the world in such a way that there is also a Sabbath in it, it is given also with regard to the land, so that we know that all the land belongs to the LORD. And what follows from the fact that the land belongs to the LORD? It means that we cannot do on it everything we want. The Sabbath reminds us that the land is the LORD's, that it is precisely the LORD who gives us the harvest and everything that is on the land; and the Sabbath was given for the remembrance of this. And when in an ordinary year we have gathered something from the field and with His permission put it into our storehouse, then it is His harvest that lies in our storehouses, and the Sabbath, once again, reminds us of this.

There is one more important side of the year that is called shmitá or sabbatical year. Just as the Sabbath is a holy assembly and a time for study, so too shmitá is a time for study. The poor man does not have to worry about his sustenance, the rich man does not have to worry about his business – all are released and all can devote all their time to the study of the Torah. This is also a very important aspect, so that people could study the law, find time for self-education. Very many specialists at universities have the so-called shnát shabbaton, a sabbatical leave, which is not tied to the year of shmitá. Every person with higher education (so it is, in any case, in Israel and in many other countries) once every seven years has a year of paid leave in order to begin studying something new, to improve himself somewhere, to raise his education. The political figure Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who was not a strongly religious person but knew the Torah and the tradition, dreamed that in Israel ordinary people too – workers, employees, people from the plow, from the machine or from the ledger – would have once every seven years the possibility to stop everything and devote this time to education and to the study of the Torah. Perhaps it will still turn out that way, and come about.

Of course, there is also the aspect of faith, the Torah will speak about this further on: how can one allow oneself not to work for a whole year, not to sow the field, when the pagan neighbors and simply neighbors who do not keep the Torah allow themselves to work.

From verse 8 we read one more stage of the Sabbath-keeping of the land.

This is arithmetic: 7x7 = 49. But the Torah counts this out for those who are not strong in arithmetic.

After the end of the forty-nine years, in the fiftieth year, make the sound of the shofar pass through – shofár tru'á. Pay attention: the beginning of the jubilee year takes place in the seventh month. Once again I want to remind you that there are different beginnings of the year. Here, for example, the Torah says that the beginning of the jubilee year must be proclaimed in the seventh month.

We often speak about the trumpet sound, the Torah speaks a lot about the trumpet sound, in Tehillim it says: “Blessed is the people that hears the trumpet sound.” The trumpet sound reminds a person both of the giving of the Torah and, perhaps, of the sound with which the Most High breathed a person's soul into his body. The sound of the shofar also reminds a person of his calling; this is “the trumpet calls” in the literal sense of the word.

What is such music needed for?

Sanctify – means set apart, make it dedicated to the Most High. This is a year in which there is nothing of yours, but everything is God's.

It happens that a person, out of poverty, out of sluggishness, out of foolishness, sells his house and is left with nothing, is left without real estate. Real estate means a great deal to a person. The Torah says: in the land of Israel one may not sell an allotment forever, it is impossible to sell an allotment forever. Any real estate transaction in Israel is a lease transaction. When you buy something out of wealthiThe Russian literally says “buy something from wealth”. It is unclear whether this means out of your own wealth or from a wealthy person, so the English keeps it literal., you must understand that it will not be yours. The land in Israel is God's, God gave it to the people, and the ownership of it belongs to the people as such. If a person sold land, he has the right to get it back completely free of charge in the jubilee year. There are ways (we will talk about them) to get it back earlier as well, but one cannot take land away from a person forever. And this binds a person to the land. Where I have an allotment, where I have real estate – to that place I will be bound, I will be interested in it, there will be my land, my allotment, my estate. And every person returns to his estate. Every slave with a pierced ear or without a pierced ear – all go out to freedom.

The word derór I translated as unbounded freedom; in the Akkadian language it means complete release of slaves, complete freedom. Slavery ceases to exist in the jubilee year, everyone is released. That is, even a person who has reached such a level of poverty that he has already, God forbid, sold himself into slavery or, God forbid, sold his daughter into slavery – all have the opportunity to be freed in the fiftieth year. Slavery cannot be endless, it can only be long. It is impossible to lose, to go bankrupt, to be left with nothing forever. Any socio-economic division that arose because of a person's foolishness, because of a person's sins, because of anything whatsoever, does not turn into a permanent one. And there are always deadlines for correction. And this is very important for us to remember, even though today we do not have a tradition of keeping the jubilee years. It is important to remember that we cannot hold on to anything endlessly and cannot submit to anything endlessly.

Look how strong the social laws are. In the seventh year, the year of shmitá, everyone eats on equal terms: those who worked and those who did not work, those who are rich and those who are poor. David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, at one time took this idea and turned it into the kibbutz movement (a kibbutz is an agricultural commune), where everyone receives the same. If the rules of the Torah fall into the hands of people who live by the Torah not fully, but only partly, then what you get is a kibbutz, and instead of equality – leveling, and shmitá every day.

A note in parentheses. One of the main symbols of the American struggle for independence, one of the main symbols of the United States, is the Liberty Bell, which is located in Philadelphia. At one time it was precisely the ringing of this Bell that gathered the residents for the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence. On this Bell are written words precisely from our verse 10: “And announce freedom in the land to all its inhabitants.” The founders of the American state decided to choose this verse as one of the national mottos or principles of the nation's existence.

When the land of Israel lives in accordance with the commands of the Torah, when it is truly the Holy Land, then the land of Israel is a land in which one can fall neither into eternal enslavement nor into eternal enrichment. If you take something from someone, it can be bought back from you or simply taken away in the jubilee year. So be careful and understand that everything you have is God's.

Here, if we remember mathematics, an interesting little figure comes out. In the forty-eighth year we sowed, the forty-ninth year is the year of shmitá, we do not sow; in the fiftieth year we also do not sow; in the fifty-first year we already sow, but until it ripens… The wheat harvest usually begins somewhere around Shavuot, the barley harvest begins around Pesach. That is, for almost three years we must rely on the Most High giving us sustenance. Such is the feature of the end of the fifty years, the feature of the jubilee year.

Here the rule is the same as in the seventh year: one may take from the field, everyone may take, but one may not put it into a storehouse.

It will probably be interesting to make the following note. When people gathered and wanted, tried to divide the fruits of this harvest, it could happen that the harvest gathered from the field was not that large, there would not be enough of it for everyone. And the official who was assigned to oversee the gathering of the harvest or the edge of the field had two options for distribution: to divide everything equally among all, or to give each one the opportunity to take according to his effort. That is, everyone who pushed his way through can take faster than someone else, though not more than he needs for food. And if among all those gathered even just one says that we take according to effort (even if all the others want equal shares), then in this case everyone takes, each according to his own effort – that is, no numbered tickets, no waiting line, but a kind of crowd. So says the Law, this is mentioned in the Talmud.

And in this key, as one of the options, one can understand Yeshua's phrase that the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force. There are no distributors who would hand out allotments in the Kingdom of Heaven or some share in it, there is no bureaucracy or any officials who would be mixed up in this or involved in it. Everyone can come according to his effort, take as much as he needs, as much as he can contain. That is, the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by boarding, is taken by force. It is precisely in this way that I suggest you perceive this option of understanding.

There is one more facet to this: you must return there, you must try to return there. A person may say, may reason like this: “I am already used to it, I have been a guest worker for 25 years, I have more belonging here than there, I have been in slavery for many years. And how could I take up an independent life! My master, thank God, is merciful to me. But how merciful God or nature will be to me if I go out, I do not know. And I do not want to anyway, I am fine here.” But there is a command to take care of one's allotment. This is not only a right, the Torah wants us to do this, to go out to freedom, to return to our allotment. If one understands this command outside of agriculture, then it concerns many of our dreams, callings, professions that we abandoned for the sake of worldly vanity out of our poverty, out of our weakness, out of foolishness or out of sinfulness. We abandoned them, forgot them, and they, these callings of ours, these allotments of ours, our talents, our unrealized abilities, unrealized dreams, they too may be waiting for us. And the Torah says: return to your allotment. There is an opportunity to obtain freedom from everything that kept you from doing what you are called to, what is truly yours.

In the next verse the topic changes, a conversation about honesty in transactions begins.

What is this about? Let's say I buy a plot of land, wherever I might buy it, before the jubilee year. What does the person sell me? He actually sells me not the land, he sells me a potential harvest. I know that, for example, 10 years remain until the jubilee year, or 20 years, or 30 years. And so I am buying 10, 20, 30 harvests – as many as remain. Well, I can ask a question, as in the Soviet cartoon: “And does the cow give much milk?” meaning: “And is your harvest from your field big, man?” And he will say: “You'll be carrying it to the storehouse and never carry it alliThe seller's reply is a Russian saying, literally “to carry and not to carry it all”. It can mean more than you can carry or nothing to carry at all, which is the author's point; the English cannot keep both readings in one phrase., that much harvest.” This can mean that either there is no harvest, or there is a lot of it. That is, I can be deceived regarding the harvest. I can be deceived regarding the fact that the neighbor next to this plot has started a dump, and bad water seeps onto it. Or I can be deceived in some other way regarding this plot. Ultimately, since the jubilee happens once every 50 years, I may forget the date and think: the jubilee is still a long way off! But it is just about to come – and it is already here. This happens to me with Shabbat. I often think that Shabbat is still far off, and suddenly I wake up in the morning, and outside it is Friday. And with the jubilee such a thing can happen all the more. And all this is the ground for endless options to deceive. Therefore the Torah says: do not deceive one another, sell the number of harvests, remember that you need to be honest, that you receive blessing not from earned money, but from the Most High.

That is, remember and do not think that you are buying land, do not deceive yourself, you are buying a number of harvests. Therefore, the more harvests, the more expensive the land; the fewer harvests remain until the jubilee, the cheaper the land.

More than you want money, you must fear God, because if you quarrel with Me, with the Most High, then no money will save you.

The security of life on the land also concerns the fact that, since we are not sowing and not plowing here now, someone may think that this is just the right time to attack us. The Most High says that keeping these commandments is the best contribution to the defense of the country on the level of the people. And on the level of my personal behavior – if I want to manage my real estate better, then I must keep the laws of the Most High both with regard to the Sabbath, that is, leave the land uncultivated in the appointed years; and in relations with my neighbors, that is, not try somehow to deceive my neighbor for the sake of my own gain. And then I will live calmly on the land.

From verse 20 there begins a sort of imaginary dialogue of the people with the Most High: what we could say and how we could object to the Most High's command not to sow the field for a year or two and somehow live.

A well-known rule: whoever does not work does not eat. How then can we not work in the seventh year? What will we eat if we do not sow? This is a perfectly reasonable thought. And the Most High explains:

That is, the Most High promises: in the sixth year (or in the forty-eighth year in the case of the jubilee year) you will gather such a harvest that you will be eating it for all of three years, it will be enough for you for three years.

One could say here: “Well, shall we test it?” So, I sowed the field in the sixth year. I looked, estimated and saw: nope, I did not get a harvest for three years. It came out as usual. And I will say to the Most High: since You do not fulfill Your promises, then I too will not keep Your Torah, I will just sow as usual. Since You gave as usual, then I too will act as usual (that is, I will sin). One can, of course, reason like this, there is such a temptation. And the answer may be that this is not always an obvious miracle, it is not necessarily about a direct blessing: the Torah also teaches us to live in accordance with these laws. I am not reasoning theoretically now, I am speaking on the basis of contact with people who work in agriculture in Israel, who say that the harvest, indeed, is not always threefold or fourfold. But it is always enough! And one way or another, for various reasons, the business always survives, things go well. And we cannot say that we suffer more loss from the fact that we keep the year of shmitá. More people appear who buy from us, we have many loyal customers who know how we grow vegetables and fruits in accordance with all the laws. And everything as a result goes well, and there is enough, enough for the business, the enterprise, the estate to hold out, so that no one goes hungry, so that the enterprise in the overall result would yield a greater profit than the competitors'. So say the people who work in agriculture.

Gerím – these are strangers, toshavím – these are permanent residents. That is, if you consider the land your own, then you are strangers. With Me, on My land, with Me you are in permanent residence. Therefore you cannot sell the land, it is not yours.

What does this mean? For example, I sold my estate, my allotment, my dacha five kilometers from Yerucham. I sold it because I had no money, because I was in need, I was foolish, or for some other reason. After some time I come to the buyer and say: “Sell it back to me.” And he must sell it to me, he cannot refuse to sell it to me.

So it happened that your brother-neighbor fell into trouble and sold you his estate, but his close relative came, who is rich enough, and bought back what was sold.

That is, I sold my estate 20 years before the jubilee. 5 years passed, and I calculated: I sold it for 20 harvests, 5 harvests he gathered, received; that means I can buy it back for 15 harvests. And the buyer has no right to refuse me the buying back of my possession temporarily sold to him.

That is, if a person could not obtain enough money to get his estate back, he has a certain restoration of rights. We cannot rob a person forever, the rich man is not permitted to fleece the poor one. And in this is the justice of history, and in this is the testimony that the land is not ours and in principle cannot be ours. It, like everything in this world, belongs to the Most High.

With God's help, you and I continue to study the weekly portion Behar. We have already spoken about the redemption of land, about the fact that any person who sold his allotment in the land of Israel can buy it back according to a certain plan or get it back completely free of charge in the jubilee year. Now the Torah will tell about some peculiarities, about some exceptions to these rules.

That is, if a person sold a house in a city of solid construction, in which there is a stormy, boiling city life, then, unlike an allotment of land or an estate, a house sold in a city can be bought back only within a year from the day of the sale.

The word yamím (days), which is used here, is often read as a year. Thus, regarding Rivka, before letting her go, her brother and her mother say: “Let her stay with us yamím…”, which also means a year.

Unlike an estate, a city apartment is not the kind of place to which a person becomes attached the way he becomes attached to the land. A person is more attached to the enclave with its numerous population, to the city itself, than specifically to his own apartment, that is how the Torah understands it. That is, the apartment is sold, the person can move to another house or to another city, and they are all the same, there are no individual features inside the city, as one would say now, inside an anthill surrounded by a wall. And therefore the Torah says that if it is only about a city apartment, then this is an exception to the rules, here there are completely different terms of redemption. Well, and as they say: life in a megalopolis moves at higher speeds, the very rhythm of life is different, and therefore the rules are a little different too.

Here it is about a city or an urban-type settlement, an open city, such were the standards in those times. That is, a city in which there are simply houses and yards, which lies in the open; in Hebrew this is called aréi prózdor, a freely sitting city. A city that is not surrounded by a wall, when there are restrictions on redemption only within a yeariThe Russian sentence links the city without a wall to the one-year limit on redemption, although the verses apply that limit to walled cities. It is translated as it stands.. An open city has the same status as an estate, as an allotment of land. And any real estate there is released in the jubilee year.

Verse 32 speaks about an exception to the exceptions.

Later, from the book of Bemidbar, we will learn that 48 cities are set aside for the Levites, among them 6 cities of refuge. Each of the tribes set aside several cities for the Levites, since they have no allotment of their own. Why is that? The first reason is contained in the blessing of Yaakov, who said: “…I will scatter them in Israel.” And the second reason – the Levites are set apart, dedicated to the Most High, their allotment is the LORD Himself.

Here our main theme can be traced, that all the land belongs to the Most High. And it is about that inheritance which was given to the Levites by the Most High. If a Levite for some reason is forced to sell his house, it goes back into his property in the jubilee year.

We will read about this, once again, in the book of Bemidbar, in chapter 35: around the Levite cities there were fields, “pastures for their cattle, and for their property, and for their needs.”

And with this, actually, the conversation about the land and its buying and selling in the land of Israel comes to an end.

It is important to see here the general instruction that the Torah gives. Your weakened and impoverished brother is not necessarily a person who has reached the end of his rope and sold himself into slavery, as in our specific case. It can also be a businessman who is going through not very good times. If he is your equal, then help him, support him, so that he stays on the level on which he was, on which he could work, live and do much that is useful for the world and for the Most High. Help your brother get back on his feet, however high he stood, it is not only about the very poorest.

That is, you must not say to him: “Well, all right, since you are so needy, sell me your gold ring for a tenth of the price,” or force him to sell something else, to do some work for pennies. This must not be done. One must not say: “I am giving you this item, which now costs 100 shekels, but you will not pay for it now, you have no money now. And when you get back up and get going, you will give me 150 shekels for it.” One must not act like this either.

Again: do not force him to borrow from you, or to take some loan from you, or to sell you something unneeded, or to sell you something that the person does not want to sell. And do not lend him a sack of potatoes so that he returns two, or a sack of potatoes so that he returns a basket of fish, do not treat him like that. There is a general rule that forbids lending money, food or anything at all at interest, for the sake of making a profit. This is not only the rule that says: I give you a loan of 100 shekels at 3 percent per year. It also happens, for example, when we split a purchase into payments and say: “Instead of paying 110 shekels at once, you will make 12 payments of 10 shekels. You will pay more, but over a greater number of payments.” Such a sale is also similar to interest. But the matter may not even be only about money. If a person owes me money and does not give it back to me for some reason, I can start asking him: “Chaim, come help me lift the piano to the third floor, or help me hang a picture.” Or I simply begin to expect that he will treat me more politely – more politely than before. If before I greeted him first, then now, when I have lent him money, I can expect that he will greet me first. And all sorts of other bonuses that I want to get from him, even some innocent ones. This is called “the dust of interest”: not quite interest, but it smells like interest. And this phenomenon is a very bad one, and the punishment for it can be the same as for interest.

All these rules are conditioned by the fact that the LORD gives us the land on which we must live in holiness. Life in holiness presupposes a certain attitude toward the land, toward oneself and toward one's neighbor. That is, one must not use a neighbor's grief, a neighbor's need for one's own purposes, not squeeze everything out of the neighbor down to the last drop.

The unfortunate person has come to the point that he is forced to sell himself into slavery and say: “Let me be your slave, and you will support me and my family, I cannot, I cannot cope on my own.” Let him be with you like a hired worker, do not use him, do not put him to those jobs that are usually meant for slaves. Even if he is your slave, give him decent work.

This person will be with you like a hired worker, you will give him some money, plus you will have to support him for his labor. And you have no right to use him for humiliating, dirty or especially hard jobs.

The slave is released, goes out to freedom, and the Torah specially notes that he goes out together with his sons. What does this mean? If a person sold himself to you into slavery, you took him as an employee, as a hired worker, then you must support, feed not only him, but also his family, his sons. These are the terms of the contract: if you want – take a person into slavery on such terms, if you don’t want – don’t take him.

What is meant is that it is forbidden to sell Jewish slaves the way it is usually done by those who engage in the slave trade: one must not sell one’s neighbor or one’s brother at the marketplace, one must not put him up on a stone so that he can be seen better. None of the methods that are used in the sale and purchase of slaves do we have the right to use with regard to our fellow.

Remember that he is not your slave, he is a slave of the Most High, who brought both him and you out of the land of Egypt. And let this warn you against the intention to make a person toil with labor beyond his strength.

That is, try to acquire slaves from among foreigners. Of course, for the modern ear it is hard in general to read about permission to have slaves, about the fact that the Torah permits having slaves and speaks about it openly. But one must remember that in those distant times this was part of reality. And the Torah speaks about what is applicable to this reality. The Torah does not speak about a paradise world and about an ideal Alex, about an ideal Chaim, about an ideal Moshe. The Torah gives Alex such commandments as are within Alex’s strength and level. It cannot command me to fly, to teleport or to lift heavy loads, but it gives the potential to grow, so that maybe I will even be able to fly. It gave the world the potential for growth, and the world grew out of slavery, which the Torah permits, also thanks to the Torah. And nevertheless, as Yeshua said, because of your hardness of heart, at that moment the Torah permits acquiring slaves from the neighboring nations. It is also important to know that the slave was joined to Judaism: he had to keep the commandments that do not depend on time, he was taught the foundations of Judaism, he was circumcised. And when he was set free, he became a Jew. Here there is not only the process of acquiring a slave and, undoubtedly, extracting economic benefit, but also bringing this slave to the shechína, to the light of the Most High.

Your neighbor, one of the sons of Israel, became so impoverished that he sold himself into slavery not to a Jew, but to one of the strangers who lives beside you, perhaps keeps some commandments, is under your jurisdiction, in your power, but he is not a Jew.

What is the essence of the matter here? If a stranger who lives beside us is under our jurisdiction and in some way submits to us, we must make him return, release that brother of ours who sold himself into slavery to him, in exchange for financial compensation. And this man, the stranger, since he submits to our laws, has no right to refuse. This is not confiscation, this is a fair way out.

What does this mean? For example, a person sold himself for 500 thousand shekels, and we know that he sold himself 10 years before the jubilee year. That means we reckon that he sold himself for a salary of 50 thousand shekels a year. If he has worked 5 years of this time, we subtract 250 thousand shekels from the sale amount, and for the remaining 250 thousand shekels the buyer must release him to us.

What does the Torah say here? If a person began to work and is working the first year, of course his efficiency at work is lower than if he is working the twentieth year: in the twentieth year he will be better trained in the household, and his work in the twentieth year should cost more. Therefore at the very beginning a person reckons his salary at one price, evenly. At the end of the term a person no longer reckons his salary as low as at the beginning. And since his salary would be higher if we take into account experience and length of service, a greater compensation is paid, and on the basis of this he buys himself back at a higher price and goes out to freedom.

And just as we have a command not to force one’s slave into heavy toil, the Torah gives this same command with regard to the stranger as well: we cannot allow a stranger to humiliate our fellow before our eyes. Therefore in verse 53 the Torah says:

Out of compassion, out of a feeling of mercy toward your neighbor, you must not allow the stranger-master who bought an Israelite into slavery to force your fellow into heavy labor, if there is no relative of his to be found who can buy him back.

Again, also in the case when a Jew sells the family into slavery to a stranger in the land of Israel, this stranger is obliged to support not only his slave himself, but also his family. The wages must not be meager, they must be high enough that there is the possibility to feed the family, clothe the family and provide it with some minimum for subsistence.

Here chapter 25 ends, but our weekly portion does not end. We will read two more verses from chapter 26.

There is one of the kinds of idolatry, one of the kinds of serving idols, when a stone platform is made in front of a statue or in front of a carved image. It is decorated in a special way, and it becomes a place of idolatry. This too is forbidden to do.

We spoke before this about strangers, about interaction with strangers, about the fact that a person, beginning to have dealings with strangers, may adopt some of their laws and rules. Therefore the Torah reminds: “Even if you have some dealings with a stranger, even if you command him and he submits to you and can return to you for a ransom a slave whom he bought, even if he has dealings with you to such an extent that he can buy a slave from your sons, and someone, God forbid, may fall into slavery to a stranger – do not, do not make yourselves these images, in any situation, even if a pagan has become your master.”

Remember that you have the Tent of Meeting, in which I live, and therefore fear to defile it or to dishonor it by worshiping somewhere in another place, some other gods.

Our portion ends like this: “I am the LORD. Remember that I am your LORD, you have no other God.” Glory to the Most High, that He is the Complete and Only Ruler, there is no God besides Him. To Him belongs the earth and everything that is on it. Everything that I have, everything belongs to Him, and I have no right to dispose of anything of my property outside His will. And everything is in His holy power, under His protection, under His blessing, under His control, everything, whatever may happen. As soon as I have something of my own, I fall out of connection with the Most High. Our portion is also about this. About much else, but also about this.

In chapter 25 of the book of Vayikra, with which the weekly portion Behar begins, from verse 1 to 9, we read the instructions that Moshe, at the command of the Most High, gives to Israel, but he addresses not the people as a whole, but as if personally each Israelite: “Sow or do not sow, reap, prune, count, sound the trumpet…” The picture changes in verse 10, when we read: “And sanctify…,” already in the plural, the address goes to the whole people.

10. And sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim freedom in the land to all its inhabitants; a jubilee shall this be for you, and you shall return each to his possession, and each to his family you shall return.

Suddenly the Torah begins to speak not with each one separately, but with everyone together. The freedom that must be proclaimed is freedom for all people. It is impossible for all Israel to become free without taking someone along into this freedom, leaving someone overboard.

In verse 25 of the same chapter we read:

25. If your brother becomes poor and sells his possession (part of his possession), let his close relative come and buy back what his brother sold.

That is, if your brother, out of poverty, agreed to some deal, agreed voluntarily, this deal can still be canceled, he himself will in time be able to buy back what was sold, and if he cannot, then in the jubilee year it will return to him free of charge.

There is also another situation:

35–36. If your brother becomes poor and falls into decline with you, then support him, whether he is a stranger or a settler, and let him live with you; do not take usury or increase from him, fear your God, so that your brother may live with you.

Often a person finds himself in such a desperate situation that he is ready to borrow money at interest, and even at high interest. He agrees to this, it is his own free consent, and one might decide: “Well, he agreed himself, I will earn something, and I will do him a good deed too.” The Torah says: “No, this is not a good deed. It is not a good deed to take advantage of a person's consent in need.” There is a big difference between consent and desire. A doctor I know, an oncologist, says: “None of my patients wants chemotherapy, no one in the world wants chemotherapy, but a person sometimes agrees to chemotherapy in order to survive.” Similar situations also happen in the people of Israel, when a person is forced to sell his estate, when a person is forced to borrow money at interest (if, well, there is really nothing left to sell) or when, God forbid, a person sells himself into slavery.

In verse 39 we read:

39–40. If your brother becomes poor with you and is sold to you, do not enslave him with slave labor: like a hired worker, like a resident he shall be with you, until the jubilee year let him work with you.

One character from the book “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilf and Petrov used to say: “Consent is a product of complete non-resistance of the parties.” If a person agrees, then a deal can be made. Here we read an amazing thing that the Torah says: “Do what the person wants, act the way you want others to act toward you. Not the way you agree for others to act toward you, but the way you want.”

We cannot, taking advantage of a person's dire situation, come to him and buy up his valuable books for next to nothing or trade his wedding ring, which is dear to him, for a sack of flour. This is not freedom, this is what in the end will lead to what is written in the book of Devarim, that you will be sold into Egypt. To be free, we must act in joint unity, not doing violence to a person, despite his consent. To be free, one must respect another's freedom: your freedom cannot be another's unfreedom, even if he agrees to give up his freedom somewhere. Only the whole people can be free, only a society of completely free people. This is what the weekly portion Behar teaches us.

Read also the portion Kedoshim on holiness and the neighbor, the talk on the covenants and the weekly portions of the Torah.