| Dear {{first_name}},
Ego is an easy thing to bog us down. It is easy to allow our egos to stand in the way of us seeing other people, and seeing the roles we play with more clarity. To quote the Prince of Egypt, “a single thread in the tapestry though its color brightly shines can never see its purpose in the pattern of the grand design.” Each and every one of those threads matters and makes up the whole picture. You cannot have existence by oneself. We exist in a society, and as such, we need to see that we need one another. What this really means is that we do not own things so much as use things that belong to the world.
In this week’s portion, Behar – Behukotai, we learn about the laws of the sabbatical and jubilee years. Every seven years, we are restricted as to what we are allowed to do with our “property.” Every seven years, we need to suffer losses because things that we think we own don't really belong to us. This is seen at an even greater level at the end of 49 years when the Jubilee year occurs. All of this is to teach us we live in a world we share with others and is owned and controlled by God. All this goes to teach us the importance of lowering our egos a great deal, and of looking outside of ourselves, to see that those around us have their own experiences and their own claims on the world as well.
The laws found in these chapters, dealing with the sabbatical and jubilee years, all deal with the land and the ways we interact with our fellow humans. We have an obligation to not only see the divine ownership of the earth, but the divinity inside each person. We are not to oppress people and not to find ways to capitalize on their bad luck or misery. Often times we do not worry about gaining from the losses of other people. We do not take issue with other people being adversely affected by our actions and decisions. But this is not the Jewish way of doing business.
We need to see that we were once the oppressed and we were once the ones who could not afford rest or freedom. In fact, the Torah makes the assertion that we are commanded to behave this way because we know what it was like to be slaves at the mercy of other people. We cannot become the “task masters” and we cannot allow ourselves to see the world as our casino to make money at the expense of others. The Torah, God and our tradition demand more from us. We are called upon to behave differently and to see our responsibilities before we see our opportunities.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Hearshen |
