Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Behar 2

however our sages point out that this is a response to the Jewish people questioning God if you will ask what we're gonna eat I'll tell you I will give you abundant crop however what would be if the Jewish people never asked if the Jewish people just accepted said for sure God we're gonna do it then there would not be abundant crop in the sixth year so how would they survive there would be an even bigger miracle even though the sixth year produced regular amount as every other year and they didn't save anything there will be a special blessing in the food and the the the grain that they harvested in the sixth year it itself the regular amount would last them for two and a half years how's that possible they would take some wheat first of all rodents wouldn't eat it would not rot it would dry and uh you would be able to store it for next year and the year after and when you take a little bit and you make dough you come back and you see the dough Rose not only in value but also in Mass and you can make more bread from the same amount of dough how's that possible the the dough miraculously grew and not only that when you'd eat a slice of bread made from that dough all of a sudden you feel satisfied I don't want to eat anymore I'm not taking another slice of bread and therefore less food will be consumed for those two and a half years and the the single crop will be enough as if you gathered two and a half times why is that most significant because that shows God's love even more you don't have to work more the same amount of money the same amount of food will last longer the same amount of effort will be enough to sustain you for longer as opposed to the situation where you question God and you say how what we're gonna eat Hashem says if you want to see it in front of you I'll show it to you I'll give you a button crop but then you'll have to harvest more you'll have to store more you'll have to process more you have to bake more and you have to eat more if you want to see it with your own eyes I'll let you but if there is more trust in God then you will have to work less and eat less spend less time and have more time for yourself and for God now verse 23 the land shall not be sold in perpetuity for the land is mine here the Torah specifies what we said before that you can only lease land in Israel not salad for you are sojourners and residents with me you are temporary residence I allow you to live on my land it's my land you can't sell it because smiling can't sell someone else's land and if I want if you're not behaving I'll Exile you from the land as it happened numerous times and it continues happening now there's over one million Israelis living in the United States alone those that ran away but from the Jewish perspective the land spit them out because they were not following the rules now verse 24 in the entire land of your ancestral heritage you shall provide Redemption for the land and therefore if your brother becomes poor and has to sell part of his land his Redeemer who is closest to him his relative shall come and redeem his brother's sale if a relative can can buy it out that's a good thing he has the right to and the the buyer cannot resist because the seller will feel better if his land is in the hands of a relative of his and maybe the relative will even allow him to have the land and give him another chance and give it to him as a loan and he'll repay the loan if a man will not have no Redeemer but his means suffice and he acquires enough for its Redemption then he shall count the years of his sale and return what remains to the man to whom he had sold it and he shall return to his ancestral heritage if the man himself was able to gather money and now can buy back his land he can do it and the buyer cannot stop him but if he does not acquire sufficient means to repay him and he doesn't have any realities who have the money to buy it back then his sales should remain in the possession of its purchaser until the Jubilee year in the Jubilee year it shall leave the buyer and return to his ancestral heritage now that's for land for Fields what about buying a house so if it's a house um in an open City there's the same rules as the land however verse 29 if a man shall sell a residence house in a world City world cities and olden times or usually on the border of the land its Redemption can take place until the end of the year of its sale its period of redemption shall be one year here the Torah gives us a limit of one year to redeem it as opposed to 49 years by land and the second difference is if the owner of the house in the world city does not redeem his house within the first year it becomes permanent property of the buyer and it does not go back to the original owner in Jubilee but verse 30 if it is not redeemed until its full year has elapsed then the home that is in a city that has a wall shall pass in perpetuity to the one who purchased it for his Generations it shall not go out in the Jubilee here and it's explained that the reason why it's so is because we want to protect the land of Israel from enemies and since the world cities are usually on the border the residents of those cities are the first line of defense against enemy attack and therefore we want them to feel that it's my house that I'm defending it's not just rented to me and soon it's going to go back to original owner imagine if in a year 49 enemies decide to attack so all the residents of the city will say next year is going to my seller anyway it's not my city let me just run away I don't care we say no it's your city if you buy it and you live there for one year it becomes yours permanent and you have to defend it now verse 31 what about houses in the Open Cities but homes in the open towns which have no surrounding wall shall be considered like the lands open field it shall have Redemption and and shall go out in the Jubilee here so houses in open in open cities are like regular fields and they can be bought back um until the oval and in the Yeovil it goes back to our original owner now page 703 another exception what if this city belongs to a levite whether it's a world city or unworld City as for the cities of the Levites the homes in the cities of their ancestral heritage the Levites shall have an eternal right of redemption unlike regular world cities where you can only redeem the house for one year a levite has the right to redeem his house whenever he wants and that is because the Torah says we're gonna read soon they have no other property that's all they have they're not given any land verse 33 and what one will buy from the Levites a home that has been sold or the city of his ancestral heritage shall go out in the Jubilee year if the levite does not buy his house back it will go back to him during Jubilee year for the homes of the levite cities that is their ancestral heritage among their children of Israel but the fields of the open land of this of their cities may not be sold at all for it is an eternal Heritage to them in addition to the city itself levite cities had a band of land around it in order for the Levites to have um some Orchards and some Vineyards as well as some open space to beautify their city and give their City some fresh air those areas cannot be sold a levite may sell his private home within the city and that it goes back to him whenever he wants to buy it back or in Jubilee but he cannot sell the land that is around the city now we have some laws of preventing poverty verse 35 if your brother becomes poor and his means falter in your proximity you shall strengthen him proselyte or a resident so that he can live with you from here we learned that you have to help a Jew before he falls down as soon as he falters as soon as you see it's hard for him help him because once he falls down is going to be much harder now verse 36 we have a commandment do not take from him interest and increase commandment not to charge interest from another Jew and you shall fear your God and let your brother live with you if a poor man needs a loan we have to be willing to give it to him with no interest verse 37 reiterates it do not give him your money for interest and do not give your food for increase not only money cannot be lended lent for with interest but even food and other objects if it's a if it's a lease or a rent then you're allowed to give it to him he'll use it he'll give it back plus he'll give a rental fee that's okay but if you're just lending it to him and he's returning it not as a rental but as a a loan then you're not allowed to charge him interest and that is because responsibility of a renter are different than that of the borrower a lot of damage that might happen to the object by a renter he doesn't have to pay because he's paying you rent whereas a borrower he has to return the object that he borrowed even if something happens to the object he still has to uh pay you the difference between the broken object and the original object that you gave him whereas the renter there is wear and tear that he doesn't have to pay for um as well as accidents he doesn't have to pay for or theft but a borrower does have to pay for everything and therefore you're not allowed to charge a borrower interest I'm Hashem your God who took you out of the land of Egypt to give the land of Canaan to be God unto you the prohibition of charging interest is very severe and it says that the person loses his ulamaba if he charges interest from other Jews now uh verse 39 laws of Jewish slaves if your brother becomes poor with you and is sold to you as a servant you shall not work him with slave labor you have to respect him and not give him menial tasks you have to give him work according to his experience and expertise and his knowledge like a laborer or a residential he be with you until the Jubilee year which means If he if he didn't want to go out in the seventh year he's allowed to stay with you until Yeovil until the 50th year but then he has to go free and during those um during those years you're not allowed to hurt him by embarrassing him and giving him lowly jobs you have to give him jobs according to his qualification now uh page 705. [Music] verse 41. what happens in the in the Yeovil in the Jubilee year then the Jewish slave shall leave you he and his children with him and he shall return to his family and to his ancestral heritage shall he return for they are my servants says God whom I have taken out from the land of Egypt they shall not be sold in the manner of a Slave you shall not subjugate him through hard labor you shall fear your God Hashem says it's not right for the Jewish people to be slaves forever if he made wrong decisions if he became poor and he had to sell his land and it wasn't enough he became even more poor so he is allowed to sell himself as a slave which is equivalent to a worker like it says like her laborer or a resident shall he be with you cannot give him heavy labor and cannot give him menial tasks cannot give him lowly tasks and and ideally Jewish people have to be free for they are my servants we have responsibilities before God we cannot subjugate ourselves to a boss first we have to make sure we do everything God requires and only then do whatever we want now verse 44 and on tells us laws of Gentile slaves your slave or your maidservant from whom you may own from the Gentiles who surround you from them you may purchase a slave or a maidservant that's a better source of slaves because they don't have laws of God to follow and therefore they need to follow someone else's laws because the nature of a human being is such that when he is free it's not good for him he ends up being lazy Wild irresponsible and therefore if someone does not take upon himself the rule of law of God then he must take upon himself the rule of law of the land verse 45 also from among the children of the residents who live with you from them you may purchase from their family that is with you and they shall remain yours as an ancestral heritage even when Jubilee year comes non-jewish slaves will remain in the possession of a Jew they don't go free you shall hold them as a Heritage for your children after you to inherit as a possession you will work with them forever but with your brethren the children of Israel a man with his brother you shall not subjugate him through hard labor now verse 47 tells us what if a Jew sold himself to a non-jew as a slave a rare occurrence if the means of the of a Sojourner who resides with you shall become sufficient and your brother becomes impoverished with him and he is sold to an alien who resides with you or to a place of Idol of a of a residence family which means he sold himself to be a worker in a family that serves Idols or to draw water and to chop wood for the Temple of idols after he has been sold he shall have a Redemption the community must get together to buy him back from his non-jewish master either one of his brothers shall redeem him or his uncle or his cousin shall redeem him or a relative from his family shall redeem him or if his own means become sufficient he shall be redeemed and just like with the Jew he has to treat the non-jewish master fairly he shall make a cow an accounting with his purchaser from the year he was sold to him until the Jubilee year the money of the peace purchase shall be divided by the number of years he shall be regarded with him like the years over laborer if there are many years he shall pay his Redemption according accordingly from the money of his purchase and if there are only a few years left he shall pay less depending how many years left until Jubilee year you have to be fair and give the non-jewish uh owner appropriate sum of money as Redemption verse 53 he shall be with him like a laborer hired by the year and you should not allow him to be subjugated through hard labor in your sight the Jewish people cannot just sit and say oh it's his fault he sold himself no we have to go and redeem him however an unfortunate event on page 707 verse 54 if he has not been redeemed by these means then he shall go out in the Jubilee year he and his children with him now verse 55 reiterates that we are God's servants for the children of Israel are servants to me they are my servants whom I have taken out of the land of Egypt I am Hashem yoga and now we have a um a commandment not to serve idols chapter 26. you shall not make Idols for yourselves and you shall not erect for yourselves a statue or pillar and in your land you shall not place a stone upon which to prostrate oneself so we're not allowed to make Idols whether for yourselves or for others We cannot put a statue or even a pillar to which we are going to bow down and we cannot place a stone on the ground upon which to bow that is why uh on Yom Kippur the only time during the year that we still bow in olden times we bow down every day now we only bow down on Yom Kippur and that is because the nanjus took our um custom and now they do it so we don't want to be associated with them and for the time being we pray while standing but originally when we would bow down we would have to put something between us and the floor that's what we do on Yom Kippur in the synagogue we'll put either a towel or a blanket or even a paper towel to separate and to show that we're not following the custom of idol worshipers we're about to Hashem not to the stone and that's why if you notice Muslims when they pray they carry a little carpet with them and they roll it out why because of this commandment you're not allowed to buy down bow down to the stone because it was the custom of the idol worshipers and now the final verse verse 2 my shabbats shall You observe and My Sanctuary shall you Revere shall you respect and fear I am Hashem we have to keep Shabbat just like the beginning of the chapter of the Torah portion told us we have to keep the seventh year now we say you have to keep my shabbat's plural Shabbat includes the seventh day of the week Shabbat includes the seventh year of the seven year cycle that's why it's plural and My Sanctuary shall you Revere this concludes um usually parashat Bihar is read together with parashatai however this here is a leap year and because of that we divide them is going to be read separately next week thank you for listening Happy Lucky the just passed and shabbat shalom um