TorahParsha

When You Have Self-Doubt

for Parshat BeChukotai

 

The book of Leviticus, the book of God’s presence in the Mishkan, closes with the tithing of animals to offer to God. Specifically, Leviticus closes with this law: Whether the animal of the flock you have tithed is desirable or undesirable, is fair or not, it does not matter. Either way, you have selected it. Either way, you may not replace it with another (though if you replace it with another that other, too, becomes holy). Either way, you have begun a processes that will not accept your rejection of what you have achieved.

Perhaps a life of God bears impossible expectations. But the closing  point of Leviticus—the book of God’s presence—says something different. That point says this: if you dwell in God’s system, even if you fall short (and who does not fall short?)—still you arrive at holiness.

 

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Shabbat Shalom,
Abe
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How to join the world

for Parshat B'Chukotai

 

i

Every seven years

God says,

you must keep the Land’s Sabbath,

you must relinquish your claims to the soil:

then rich and poor

servant and worker

citizen and foreigner

man and beast

will eat of the Land together.

*

But if you forsake My Laws,

God says,

I will scatter you out among the nations.

Then,

with you off the Land,

at last the Land will keep its Sabbaths.

Lost among the peoples,

you will be contrite,

you will purify your uncircumcised hearts.

 

ii

When you feel free

to not follow God

to act as any people,

then you join the nations—

not as a guest, though,

but as a scattered folk

as the uncircumcised of heart

as failed Jews.

*

When you give of your soil to God

when you share your soil

with the community around you—

you unite rich and poor

citizen and foreigner

man and animal:

you unite the world.

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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Leviticus 25:1-8, 26:33-34,41

I translate u’ltoshavecha hagarim imach as a kind of foreigner. Rashi  on Leviticus 25:6, and Abraham’s use of Ger v’toshav nochi imachem (said to the Hittites) in Genesis 23:4.

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How we improve upon God

for Parshat B'Har - B'Chukotai

 

i

God says:

every seven years

will be God’s Sabbath year:

let the Land lie fallow,

let whatever grows be left

for everyone to eat.

*

Then God says:

count forty nine years—

seven cycles

of seven years,

a perfection of sevens.

And one year past that perfection

on the fiftieth year

you must sanctify the year,

you must proclaim freedom in the Land:

lands go back

to their ancestral families,

slaves go back

to their families as well.

 

ii

God says:

when My year has come,

recognize that it has come.

Step back from My Land.

Renounce ownership.

And when we renounce ownership

we all access the same land,

the same food;

equality is the wonderful by- product.

*

Then God says:

Go beyond merely recognizing My years.

Make the years yours.

Count the years yourselves.

Sanctify the fiftieth year,

the culminating year,

yourselves.

And go beyond letting equality come:

declare freedom outright.

 

iii

God shows us

to take the human

within His Law

and to draw it out

and so to make God’s Law

a human Law.

That is the culmination of His Law.

That brings His Law

even beyond perfection.

 

 

__

Shabbat shalom,

Abe       

www.TorahParsha.com

How should we use our senses?

for Behar - BeChukotai

i

I see the world from my own vantage-point.

But I hear your voice

from wherever I face;

sound calls me to you.

*

Consider:

Eve finds the Fruit

a pleasure to the eyes;

but she and Adam hear

the voice of God in the Garden,  

and they know they have wronged Him.

Eyes are a gateway to your pleasure;

sound startles you

from yourself

toward another.

 

ii

We count out forty-nine years.

On the fiftieth

we blow the shofar,

the trumpet.

Debts are forgiven,

land reverts to ancestral families,

land goes fallow;

slaves go free.

To say:

your borrower

land

slave

have their own existence

entirely apart from you.

*

We come to this understanding

through the trumpet:

through listening.

 

iii

Of the slave who shall go free

in the fiftieth year,

God says:

he is owed freedom,

you shall not see him worked brutally 

before your eyes.

To say:

train your eyes

to find brutality

to root it out.

*

For forty-nine years

you ready yourself to hear the shofar:

to listen,

to hear around you.

Learning to listen,

you learn to use your eyes.

Learning to listen,

you learn to see.

 

 

 

____

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

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When does Money Become Holy? (for Parshat BiHar/BiKhukotai)

i

God says: When you come to the land, every seventh year the land shall keep a Sabbath.

You renounce ownership of the land in this Sabbath year.

All that year’s produce shall be for you, and for your servant… and for your stranger who dwells with you--you shall all have this produce together.

When you come to the Land, this year is the framework of your years.

When you come to the Land, your years are framed by sharing.

*

And God says: If you follow My Laws… I will grant your rains in their season; and the Land shall give forth its yield.

Understand that wealth—the  Land’s crop—only comes through God’s rains.

*

And God tells how a person may contribute money—value—to Him, to His Temple.

 

ii

If you share your wealth with the community around you, if you act knowing that your wealth comes only through God’s rains, through God’s gifts—then your wealth truly holds value.

Then, your money can be made holy—a gift to God.

 

____________

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

 

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Verses cited: Lev. 25:2,6; 26:3-4; 27:3

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Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther