Ever Ever Land
Parashat Behar-Bechukotai Lev. 25:1 – 27:34
Rachel Wolf, Beth Messiah Congregation, Cincinnati
The land of Israel, along with the people of Israel, is the centerpiece of God's eternal program. The two go together inseparably. The land comes into its proper purpose when the people of Israel are its custodians. Our double parasha makes it clear that the people do not own the land; Am Yisrael is merely its appointed steward and guardian. The Lord has appointed Israel as his priestly nation to care for the land just as the Levitical priests care for the Tabernacle. Each is dependent on the other.
In Leviticus 25, Israel is commanded that every seven years the Land is to be given a holy Sabbath rest. After seven periods of seven years, the fiftieth year is to be a super-Sabbath in which everything is restored to its proper place and proper relationships.
You shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. (25:10)
The Land is to lie fallow for the fiftieth year. People are to return, each one, to their original land allocation from the Lord; and, if indentured servants, to return to their family.
The whole economy of Israel is based on the Jubilee year. There are many statutes in this portion about selling land ethically, based on the number of years left until the Jubilee. This means that the economy is built on the idea that nobody actually owns his land in the way we think of ownership today in the West. It is (in effect) a leasing system; when you buy land, you pay for years of use. The value of land depends on how many years are left until the 50th year Sabbath in which everything reverts to its primary status. The land belongs only to God and each tribe and family has a designated portion to inhabit and take care of.
The people of Israel do not own their time either! Their daily, weekly, and yearly time belongs to the Lord, and he has commanded, above all, to keep the Sabbath as a holy day unto God. In fact, the further we dig in, the more we begin to understand why the Shabbat is so important.
All of the various kinds of Sabbaths in this parasha link Israel’s holy purpose to the very beginning — to Creation. “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Gen 2:3). The Sabbath is not only about physical rest. It is about laying aside land rights, time, goods, and every other thing to the Lord, as a way of expressing trust in God and in the future that is in his hands.
The jubilee year is directly related to Yom Kippur. It is both Israel's super-Shabbat and Israel's super-Day of Atonement. The clock is reset; we get a new chance; our sins are covered and we can start anew.
This double portion also makes it clear that the Shabbats for the land, including Jubilee, reveal God's future plans for Israel and the Earth. Israel is to model “the day that is all Shabbat,” when God will set up his king from among the brothers of Israel to rule for him, when swords will be beaten into plowshares, and no one any longer need be afraid.
The problem we face with this beautiful biblical understanding is that the world does not see or understand God's purpose for the land of Israel. Most understand the tensions and wars in the area as economic or land-boundary based. Others of course see the Arabs as being oppressed by western powers for centuries. And they see the modern-day Jewish return to their land as Western aggression.
I find myself wanting to explain the beautiful biblical narrative to people that don't even believe in the spiritual realm and don't believe there is such a thing as evil in the world.
I want to tell them that God's program of settling Israel in the land is a program for the good of all the people of the world. It is for blessing to all the people of the world. The Jewish people are placed in the land so that God can bless the rest of the world through his special land that he created to be the place where his presence dwells. It is the Unique Place from which the priestly nation can bless the faithful of the world as Aaron and his sons were commanded to bless (“put his Name on”) the people of Israel (Num. 6:22–27).
We can see this beginning in the very beginning of Genesis where God prepares the garden before he places the adam in it. He walks in the garden and communicates with his first creatures. He desires, as he says throughout the Torah and the rest of the scriptures, to dwell with his people. That is the purpose of the Mishkan.
But there are those who do not want to be ruled by God and there are many who are also duped or confused about the international situation. Personally I don't know how to put all this together. But it is definitely a time in history in which we Jews have to stand together under the banner, Am Yisrael Chai—the People of Israel Live!
And as Jewish disciples of Yeshua, we have the opportunity to express our strong faith in God's holy purposes for us as a people. And, even more importantly perhaps, to encourage our people by expressing confidence in God's faithfulness to the Jewish people, the people of Israel. We can do this through opening up the words of the Prophets and the Torah and through sharing our own experiences.
I have found that simply expressing my trust and confidence in God's ongoing faithfulness to our people has encouraged a number of my Jewish friends. The Jewish community talks a lot about resilience, and this is important. But I think there is also uncertainty about whether God is still there and still works on our behalf. We can be a light of encouragement and faith in this way to our people.
Even at the end of the very difficult recital of curses in Leviticus 26, God makes it clear that Israel is always, and will ever be, his dearly beloved people.
Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations that I might be their God. I am Hashem. (26:44-45)
He calls his own name by his people, namely, the God of Israel. He is invested in our future. He will never leave us nor forsake us. Now is the historical time of comfort for Zion.
As we listen to his voice through the scriptures and through the spirit let us be a light and a great encouragement to our people that now is the time to favor Zion (Psa 102:13). Yes, the time to favor Zion has come. And God will act on our behalf.