Behar-Behukotai
Summary: Behar and Bechukotai come very frequently together. In a 19 year cycle, they are read together 12 times. Behar (“On The Mountain”) details the laws of the sabbatical year (Shemita), when working the land is prohibited and debts are forgiven. It also sets out laws of indentured servitude and of the Jubilee year (Yovel), when property reverts to its original ownership. Bechukotai (“In My Laws”) is the final Torah portion in the Book of Leviticus. It begins describing blessings that follow obedience to God’s laws and curses that come with desecration of them. It ends with laws of vows and consecration of people and property.
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In the parsha of Bereshit, God poses two questions that end up being fundamental for our existence – Ayeka – where are you? and Ey Hevel achicha – where is your brother Abel?
We know that siblinghood is fraught with problems in the entire book of Bereshit. Kayin and Hevel are the first ones, but it does not get a whole lot better as we move through the story. Ishmael is banned to give space to Itzchak, whom he might have tried to kill, according to some commentators. Esau threatens to kill Yaakov, who has definitely pulled the wool over his eyes, as only brothers can do to one another. Rachel and Leah have a relationship defined by competition. The sons of Yaakov pretend their brother Yosef is dead.
Really, the only two siblings that get more or less along are Aharon and Moshe, and even then their relationship is not easy.
When you have that in mind, it is quite jarring to read the Hebrew of our portion, and not see the word achicha, your brother, jumping out, almost screaming. In the whole of Leviticus, “your brother” will appear 8 times, five in our reading. If you add achiv, “his brother”, as in “he will redeem his brother” that will appear 9 times in the entire book of Leviticus, but 5 of those will be in our reading. If you have been keeping count, of the 17 times brother appears in the book, ten of those times are in our reading. So the idea of siblinghood, at this end of the book, is really important.
In part, it is because we are reading the laws of the Yovel, the Jubilee year. And our reading depicts a person falling progressively into poverty, first selling their land, then living with relatives and finally selling themselves as slaves, either to other Jews or to non-Jews. At all points, that person’s siblings are supposed to come and help, to redeem the land and the person. And then an interesting shift happens, which is as the slave is free with the Yovel, the Jubilee year, they are supposed to, and I quote “return to their family”. The text has slid an expansion of the term “brother” – the brother is not whom you share a bloddline with, but the brother, the sibling, is really just another person that is part of our people. The obligation for caring for them is expanded as if they were siblings.
We easily see and feel that we have deeper relationships with those in our family, that those with whom we share a personal history have a claim on us, and us on them. The idea that if a sibling has fallen into poverty and we should help them is easily accepted, as it is the first circle of obligation. But the text wants more: the text wants us to accept the obligation as the circle expands to all the persons in our people. You could, and probably should, that the web of obligation is stronger among the members of one’s family, and weaker among the members of one’s people. But the text is very clear: do not imagine it does not exist. There is an obligation to the other, those who are not your family.
But do we stop there? Just on our people? The Torah, having told us the stories of all the siblings in Genesis, is actually asking us to see a little deeper and a little more expansive. Remember, the second question that God asks a human being is “where is your brother?”
We all, at a certain point, quoted the answer “I don’t know! Am I my brother’s keeper?” because we intinctively know that yes, we are the ones taking care of our siblings, just as they are taking care of us. But let us remember that Kayin is not just the universal figure for the first homicide and fratricide. He is the universal figure of not caring.
The Torah can really be seen as the response to that question. In Deuteronomy, for instance, there is no such a thing as “the poor” as a separate entity than “us” (chapter 15). Every time the poor are mentioned, they are mentioned as your sibling somewhere. The text in Deuteronomy goes so far to remind us that “you are all children of your God” (14:1).
But we, my friends, we do not live in Torah times, we live in the 21st century. Our understanding of our interconnectedness has grown, and we all have seen the idea that we can always be connected to anyone in the world with 6 steps. This is one of the beauties of social media – we learn that we are, indeed, connected to all.
In the Talmud, in Baba Metzia, we read that our circles of obligation begin in our family, but they never stop there. In Sotah we learn that we support the non-Jewish poor together with the Jewish poor, the sick Jews along with the sick non-Jews, the Jewish and the non-Jewish deceased are all to be taken care for together.
We, Jews, are called to care. Not just about our family, not just about our people, not just about our town, not just about our state, not just about our country. We are called by the text to care. For all. Not equally, but care for all.
It is only by answering God’s second question: where is your brother? with a significant answer, and not the flippant answer of Kayin, that truly, we can then know the answer to the first of God’s questions: where are you?
May this week we be able to answer “hineini”, here I am, to both of those questions.
Shabbat Shalom
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Shabbat morning:
~ What things can be made sanctified, ie, consacrated, specified for use in the Temple, according to our reading? What are the exceptions?
~ What is the power of saying that something is for the use of the Temple?