Looking at the roster of other Library Minyan members who agreed to author a commentary on parashat ha’shavua makes me feel out of place. What makes me think I’m qualified to join their ranks? There are Rabbis, teachers – even Rabbis who are teachers. What business does a lawyer have joining their ranks?
I offered to write about this week’s Torah reading, B’har, for two reasons.
First, and most obvious: this Shabbat, G-d willing, Gail and I will proudly watch our daughter, Hannah, take a place amidst the adults of the Jewish community, as she celebrates becoming Bat Mitzvah. She has developed (and, maybe the boastful father can say, mastered) skills by the age of 12 that I think are beyond my abilities to acquire: she can read Torah and Haftarah, she is well on her way to fluency in Hebrew, she speaks of studying Torah with Rashi as if he were a classmate, rather than a renowned medieval commentator. If, I thought, she can do all that, certainly I can write a d’rash that won’t embarrass me when posted on the Minyan’s website.
Second, and more important, is the substance of B’har itself. As I mentioned, I’m an attorney. Specifically, I’m a real estate lawyer. And it is in B’har, more than anyplace else in the Torah, that this real estate lawyer finds himself on solid, comfortable ground. For B’har sets forth laws governing the sale and redemption of property, particularly land. From this parasha, and particularly the two verses discussed below, the real estate lawyer in me draws lessons about the type of community that is held out as an ideal – lessons that would be valuable not just to our community in the Library Minyan, but to the real estate and business community of which I am a part on the “other 6 days” each week.
“When you sell property to your neighbor, or buy any from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.” (Vayikra 25:14).
What could be clearer than this, really? “You shall not wrong one another.” It’s clean, simple and completely unambiguous – much easier to understand than, for example, the voluminous “disclosure” forms that are familiar to any California homeowner. So straightforward, one might say, that not even a lawyer could find a way to get around it. And yet, for some reason, our commentators try.
In the Etz Chaim chumash, the note on this verse says, “This law applies only to transfers of property among Israelites.” No source is given, but maybe the source is Nehama Leibowitz, who writes that “both parties to the transaction are addressed by the Torah” – perhaps implying that this law only applies when both parties to the transaction are bound by the laws of the Torah.
But why, if Israel is to be or lagoyim, a light unto the nations, should we interpret laws that call for fair dealing as being only for the benefit of our own community? Are we saying that it is wrong to exploit or cheat each other, but not “outsiders”? In the business world, stories are told far too often of those who claim to be religious people, whose ethical standards seem to be left at home each day when they come to work.
This text, for me, is one where the p’shat – the plain meaning – is only harmed by attempts at explanation and interpretation.
“For the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with me. Throughout the land that you hold, you must provide for the redemption of the land.” (Vayikra 25:23-24)
The Biblical concept of land ownership is unlike anything in our society today. Land was assigned to tribes, and within tribes to families. As Jews, we feel a connection to the Land of Israel; that connection is not broken by our residence here, no matter how infrequent our visits. These laws of redemption, set forth in the middle part of Chapter 25, are designed to maintain the connection between the people and their land.
Biblical laws of redemption were integrally tied to the concept of the Jubilee: In the 50th year, all land would revert back to its original ownership, keeping specified lands within the designated tribe. The land was not for the person, but the land was for the community.
How different the biblical system was from our own system. Biblical redemption laws were designed to protect the poorest members of the community from the calamities of life; the widow and the orphan could sell their land to sustain themselves through hard times, knowing that at the next Jubilee it would be restored to the tribe.
Redemption, as a concept, is part of the American legal system today. In many states, a property owner whose home is being sold at a foreclosure sale has the right – sometimes as long as one year after foreclosure – to buy it back by paying off the debt.
In recent months, we have “reformed” our debt laws – we call them our “bankruptcy” laws. But we haven’t made it easier to help the poor; our reforms aid the creditors, not the debtors, in ways far too numerous to list here.
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In his new book, God’s Politics, Jim Wallis argues that “The real question is not whether religious faith should influence a society and its politics, but how.” The Torah readings of recent weeks have, for many years now, been the source of debate and dissent over just how to interpret a single verse in Vayikra; the impact of that debate has moved to occupy a prominent position in our national agenda. We, too, as members of the Conservative movement, will watch our Rabbis face this issue, and then face it ourselves in our communal organizations, synagogues, and daily life.
But maybe the strong emotions provoked by those parshiot have caused us to lose sight of the lessons of B’har, which speak so clearly and strongly to all of us about such basic lessons as treating others fairly, and taking care of those in need. Those who argue the loudest about the plain meaning of one text in Acharei Mot are often far too quick to overlook the plain meaning of numerous others, such as those in B’har.
If we, as a Jewish community, have learned the lessons of B’har, we will live those lessons in the workplace and in the market, and incorporate them in our letters to Congress and our votes. And then, as we are taught (Vayikra 25:17-18), “Do not wrong one another, but fear your God, for I the Lord am your God. You shall observe My laws and faithfully keep My rules, that you may live upon the land in security.”
Shabbat shalom.