Torah Stories By Hannah Parasha Behar Bechukotai

Behar: This week’s story starts with the commandment of the Shabbat year for the land of Yisrael. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield but in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath of HaShem. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard; you shall not reap the after growth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines. It shall be a year of complete rest for the land, but you may eat whatever the land during its Shabbat shall produce, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound labourers who live with you, and your cattle and the beasts in your land may eat its entire yield.

You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty nine years, then you shall sound the horn loud in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, the day of atonement, you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year, you shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you, each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you. You shall not sow, neither shall you reap the after growth or harvest the untrimmed vines. For it is a Jubilee, it shall be holy to you. You may eat only the growth direct from the field. In this year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his holding. When you sell property to your neighbour, or buy any from your neighbour, you shall not wrong one another. In buying from your neighbour you shall deduct only the number of years since the Jubilee and in selling to you, he shall charge you only for the remaining crop years. The more such years, the higher the price you pay. The fewer such years, the lower the price, for what he is selling to you is a number of harvests. Do not wrong one another, but fear your G-d, for HaShem is your G-d.

You shall observe HaShem’s laws and faithfully keep His rules that you may live upon the land in security. The land shall yield its fruit and you shall eat your fill. And you shall live upon it in security. And should you ask: “What are we to eat in the seventh year if we may neither sow nor gather in our crops?” I will ordain my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year you will still be eating old grain of that crop. You will be eating the old until the ninth year, until its crops come in.

But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is HaShem’s you are but strangers resident with HaShem. Throughout the land that you hold you must provide for the redemption of the land.

If your kinsman is in straits and has to sell part of his holding, his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his kinsman has sold. If a man has no-one to redeem for him but prospers and acquires enough to redeem with, he shall calculate the years since its sale, refund the difference to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his holding. If he lacks sufficient means to recover it, what he sold shall remain with the purchaser until the Jubilee. In the Jubilee year it shall be released and he shall return to his holding.

If a man sells his house in a walled city it may be redeemed until a year has elapsed since its sale. The redemption period shall be a year. If it is not redeemed before a full year has elapsed, the house in the walled city shall pass to the purchaser, beyond reclaim throughout the ages. It shall not be released in the Jubilee, but houses in villages that have no encircling walls shall be classed as open country; they may be redeemed and they shall be released through the Jubilee. As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities they hold, the Levites shall forever have the right of redemption. Such property may be redeemed from the Levites. Houses sold in a city they hold shall be released through the Jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their holding among the Yisraelites. But the enclosed land about their cities cannot be sold for that is their holding for all time.

If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your authority and you hold him as though a resident alien, let him live by your side; do not exact from him advanced or accrued interest but fear your G-d, let him live by your side as your kinsman. Do not lend him money at advanced interest or give him your food at accrued interest, because HaShem is your G-d who brought you out of the land of Mitsrayim to give you the land of Canaan, to be your G-d.

If your kinsman under you continues in straits and must give himself over to you, do not subject him to the treatment of a slave. He shall remain with you as a hired or bound labourer. He shall serve with you only until the Jubilee year. Then he and his children with him shall be free of your authority. He shall go back to his family and return to his ancestral holding. For they are HaShem’s servants whom he freed from the Land of Mitsrayim, they may not give themselves over into servitude. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly. You shall fear your G-d. Such male and female slaves as you have – it is from the nations round about you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also buy them from the children of aliens resident among you. Or from their families that are among you in your land. These shall become your property; you may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property for all time. Such you may treat as slaves. But as for your Yisraelite kinsman, no-one shall rule ruthlessly over another.

If a resident alien among you has prospered, and your kinsman, being in straits, comes under his authority, and gives himself over to the resident alien among you, or to an offshoot of an alien’s family, he shall have the right of redemption. Even after he has given himself over one of his kinsmen may redeem him, or his uncle, or his uncle’s son shall redeem him, or anyone of his family who is of his own flesh. Or if he prospers he may redeem himself. He shall calculate with his purchaser the total from the year he gave himself over to him, until the Jubilee year. The price of the sale shall be applied to the number of years as though it were for a turn as a hired labourer under the others’ authority. If many years remain he shall pay back for his redemption in proportion to his purchase price and if few years remain until the Jubilee year he shall so calculate. He shall make payment for his redemption according to the years involved. He shall be under his authority as a labourer, hired by the year. He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. If he has not been redeemed in any of those ways, he and his children with him shall go free in the Jubilee year. For it is to HaShem that the Yisraelites are servants; they are HaShem’s servants whom He freed from the Land of Mitsrayim.

You shall not male idols for yourselves, or set up for yourselves carved images or pillars or place figured stones in your land to worship upon. For HaShem is your G-d, you shall keep His Sabbaths and venerate His sanctuary.

Bechukotai: If you follow HaShem’s laws and faithfully observe His commandments, He will grant you rain in its season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage and your vintage shall overtake your sowing. You shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land. Peace will be granted in the land and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone. The land will be given relief by HaShem from vicious beasts and no sword shall cross your land. You shall give chase to your enemies and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall give chase to ten thousand. Your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. HaShem will look with favour upon you and make you fertile and multiply you and HaShem will maintain His covenant with you. You shall eat old grain long stored and you shall have to clear out the old to make room for the new. HaShem will establish His abode in your midst and will not spurn you. He will be ever present in your midst: He will be your G-d and you shall be His people. HaShem is your G-d who brought you out from the land of Mitsrayim to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

But if you do not obey HaShem and observe all His commandments, if you reject His laws and spurn His rules so that you do not observe all His commandments and break His covenant; HaShem, in turn, will do this to you: He will wreak misery upon you; consumption and fever, which causes the eyes to pine and the body to languish, you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for your enemies shall eat it. He will set His face against you; you shall be routed by your enemies, and your foes shall dominate you. You shall flee though none pursues.

And if for all that, you do not obey HaShem, He will go on to discipline you sevenfold for your sins, and He will break your proud glory. He will make your skies like iron, and your earth like copper, so that your strength shall be spent to no purpose, you land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.

And if you remain hostile toward HaShem and refuse to obey Him, He will go on smiting you sevenfold for your sins. He will loose wild beasts against you and they shall bereave you of your children and wipe out your cattle. They shall decimate you and your roads shall be deserted.

And if these things fail to discipline you for HaShem, and you remain hostile to HaShem, He will also remain hostile to you. He, in turn, will smite you sevenfold for your sins. He will bring a sword against you to wreak vengeance for the covenant; and if you withdraw into your cities, He will send pestilence among you and you shall be delivered into enemy hands. When HaShem break your staff of bread ten women shall break your bread in a single oven; they shall dole out your bread by weight, and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.

But if despite this you disobey me and remain hostile to HaShem, he will act against you in wrathful hostility. You shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters, He will destroy your cult places and cut down your incense stands, and He will heap your carcasses on your lifeless fetishes, He will spurn you, He will lay your cities in ruin and make your sanctuaries desolate. And He will not savour your pleasing odours. He will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled by it and you will be scattered among the nations, and HaShem will unsheathe the sword against you. Your land shall become desolation and your cities ruin.

Then shall the land make up for its Sabbath years throughout the time that it is desolate, and you are in the land of your enemies. Then shall the land rest and make up for the Sabbath years. Throughout the time that it is desolate, it shall observe the rest that it did not observe in your Sabbath years while you were dwelling upon it. As for those of you who survive, HaShem will cast faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight; fleeing as though from a sword, they shall fall though none pursues. With no-one pursuing they shall stumble over one another as before the sword. You shall not be able to stand your ground before your enemies, but shall perish among the nations. And the land of your enemies shall consume you. Those of you who survive shall be heart sick over their iniquity in the land of your enemies. More, they shall be heartsick over the iniquities of their fathers, and they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in that they trespassed against HaShem. Then at last shall their stubborn heart humble itself and they shall atone for their iniquity. Then HaShem will remember His covenant with Ya’akov and also His covenant with Yitzchak, and also His covenant with Avraham, and He will remember the land.

For the land shall be empty of them, making up for its Sabbath years by being desolate of them while they atone for their sin. For the reason that they have rejected HaShem’s rules and spurned His laws. Yet even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, He will not reject them or spurn them as to destroy them; annulling His covenant with them; For HaShem is their G-d. He will remember in their favour the covenant with the ancients whom He freed in the land of Mitsrayim in the sight of the nations to be their G-d.

These are the laws, rules ands instructions that HaShem established through Moshe on Mount Sinai between Himself and the Yisraelite people.

When anyone explicitly vows to HaShem, the equivalent for a human being, the following scale shall apply: if it is a male from twenty to sixty years of age, the equivalent is fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary weight. If it is a female, the equivalent is thirty shekels. If the age is from five to twenty years, the equivalent is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. If the age is from one month to five years, the equivalent for a male is five shekels of silver, and for a female is three shekels of silver. If the age is sixty years or over, the equivalent is fifteen shekels in the case of a male and ten for a female, but if one cannot afford the equivalent, he shall be presented before the priest and the priest shall assess him. The priest shall assess him according to what the vower can afford.

If the vow concerns any animal that may be brought as an offering to HaShem, any such that may be given to HaShem shall be holy. One may not exchange or substitute another for it, either good for bad or bad for good; if one does substitute one animal for another, the thing vowed and its substitute shall both be holy. If the vow concerns any unclean animal that may not be brought as an offering to HaShem, the animal shall be presented before the priest, and the priest shall assess it. Whether high or low, whatever assessment is set by the priest shall stand; and if he wishes to redeem it, he must add one fifth to its assessment.

If anyone consecrates his house to HaShem, the priest shall assess it. Whether high or low, as the priest assesses it, so it shall stand; and if he who has consecrated his house wishes to redeem it, he must add one fifth to the sum at which it was assessed, and it shall be his.

If anyone consecrates to HaShem any land that he holds, its assessment shall be in accordance with its seed requirement: fifty shekels of silver to a homer of barley seed. If he consecrates his land as of the Jubilee year, its assessment stands. But if he consecrates his land after the Jubilee, the priest shall calculate the price according to the years that are left until the Jubilee year, and its assessment shall be so reduced; and if he who consecrated the land wishes to redeem it, he must add one fifth to the sum at which it was assessed, and it shall pass to him. But if he does not redeem the land, and the land is sold to another, it shall no longer be redeemable: when it is released in the Jubilee, the land shall be holy to HaShem, as land promised; it becomes the priest’s holding. If he consecrates to HaShem land that he purchased, which is not land of its holding, the priest shall calculate for him the proportionate assessment up to the Jubilee year, and he shall pay the assessment as of that day, as sacred donation to HaShem. In the Jubilee year the land shall revert to him from whom it was brought, whose holding the land is. All assessments shall be by the sanctuary weight, the shekel being twenty gerahs.

A firstling of animals however, which – as a firstling – is HaShem’s cannot be consecrated by anybody; whether ox or sheep, it is HaShem’s. But if it is of unclean animals, it may be ransomed as its assessment, with one fifth added; if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at its assessment.

But of all that anyone owns, be it man or beast or land of his holding, nothing that he has promised for HaShem may be sold or redeemed; every promised thing is totally consecrated to HaShem. No human being that is promised can be ransomed: He shall be put to death.

All tithes from the land, whether seed from the ground or fruit from the tree, are HaShem’s; they are holy to HaShem. If anyone wishes to redeem any of his tithes, he must add one fifth to them. All tithes of the herd or flock – of all that passes under the shepherd’s staff, every tenth one – shall be holy to HaShem. He must not look out for good as against bad, or make substitution for it. If he does make substitution for it, then it and its substitute shall both be holy: It cannot be redeemed.

These are the commandments HaShem gave Moshe for the Yisraelite people on Mount Sinai.