Clergy Sermons

Behar – God Owns the Land 

This has been a very painful week for the Jewish community.  To learn that two beautiful young people, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who worked at the Israeli embassy, were murdered in cold blood after attending a Jewish communal event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC – has left us shaken and upset.   

We grieve.  Let’s allow ourselves to grieve and honor their memories. We will reflect on the broader context this act is part of and address the words the created an atmosphere where these acts occur - but today, my message is to allow ourselves time and space to grieve these beautiful people; and not to allow hatred to impact who we are.  Let’s not hide our Judaism or allow fear to pull us away from community.  Now more than ever, we need each other.  Let’s be proud of who we are and celebrate how Jewish values define our being and behavior.  The response to antisemitism is holding on to the love, insights and joy of our tradition – never allowing insane hatred to define us.  

I wish you all could have been there last Monday when our Zayen class shared their tzedakah projects.  Rather than give each student another gift amidst the large number of gifts received – parents donated the equivalent of what they would have given to all the kids in the class to the office.  Every cent of that donations was given to the organizations the students selected.  Each student presented an organization that spoke to their hearts connected to a Jewish value.  The class then voted how to distribute the money.  They learned about the difference they can make.  They internalized that their obligation is to be involved. They found their individual voices within our tradition.  To see how they have allowed their Judaism to define their ethics and behaviors reminds us that Jewish pride can indeed be learned. To hear the passion with which the need to care and make the world better defines them showed how Jewish pride is a central piece of their identity.  

Upholding our central values and knowing who we is the response to hatred.  It gives strength and courage.  When we ended the book of Leviticus today by proclaimed Chazak Chazak V’nit’chazek – Be strong! Be strong! And you will be strengthened! We saw the strength that our students gained from their Jewish identity.  

      Almost every value the students spoke about is in this morning’s Torah portion.  Sometimes you have to dig beneath the surface, but it is there in powerful ways.  Look at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, we see that every 7 years you don’t plant on your land. According to the text: “It shall have a complete rest.”   That doesn’t make sense.  How can it be that we stop farming for a year – especially in a world plagued by hunger?   

But maybe it makes more sense that we know.  We now know that when land is overused – it does not yield as much produce. The biblical commentator Rashi made that comment almost one thousand years ago!  Land needs to regenerate. Michael Pollan wrote a famous book The Omnivore’s Dilemma where he highlights the negative impacts of industrial agriculture - including land overuse and environmental degradation.  Maybe the Torah was just ahead of its time.   

And then as we dig deeper – exploring the principles that lay beneath the surface of the details – finding more meaning.   

One is our connection to Israel.  The sabbatical laws only took place in Israel where Jewish values permeate everyday life. The power of Israel is that potential exists to bring Jewish values to life in the context of a sovereign state. When we feel Israeli policies may not live up to these sacred values – we work to change that reality!  A piece of mourning Yaron and Sarah was how deeply they were connected to Israel – pursuing jobs at the Israeli Embassy that made this land and what policies it pursues their life’s work. We honor their memories as we honor the love of Israel that defined them.  

Another value of not planting the land on the 7th year is the power of rest. We need balance in life – by teaching that land needs to rest – we remember that we too need to rest.  We are so defined by the work we do – but like the land in this chapter we need to take time to rejuvenate and recover. Slowing down changes us. Maybe these laws about not planting on the seventh year invites us to simply observe nature without trying to exert power over it. Appreciate it. Feel gratitude for it.   

This connects to a deeper religious principle in the text – the land is not ours; it belongs to God. If it belongs to God we treat it differently- we are humble and careful.  This ethic is sorely lacking today.  We misuse the land – treating it as if it is ours to exploit and misuse in the name of profit rather than belonging to God.  The daily implications of this are profound.  Rather than pouring plastic into the oceans and carbon into the air, we say that the world is God’s - and we are just tenants meant to care for it.  We recognize our limitations and temper our power. The Torah is making a radical statement: We don’t own anything in any real sense; we merely have rights of use. One of the organizations that was presented on Monday was about how we can better care for the environment. Think if we all took this to heart in small, daily ways: using less plastic, reducing carbon, pursing policies and behaviors that punish polluters and reduce waste. 

What happens on the 7th year? Everyone has access – the poor who live in your area and animals.  When people come into your fields you see them.  They become humans and not other.  It changes everything. When you create an ethic that cares for animals, it changes you.  The 7th year makes connections between people and care for animals.  Several of the organizations presented on Shabbat were about caring for and lifting up those who are often overlooked – including animals.   

Sarah and Yaron, of blessed memory, were at an event devoted to bringing humanitarian aid to those in need across the Middle East.  Seeing people who are different than us was a passion of Sarah.  One cause she supported was called Tech2Peace – which supports entrepreneurship between young Palestinians and Israelis.  She believed that when you saw someone face to face – as happens when people come into your field on the 7th year – seeds of peace and care take root. We respond to hate by doubling down on care and connection.  

Sabbatical year happens every 7th year.  Every 50th year there is a Jubilee year – 7 times 7 – after the 49th year.  During the Jubilee year, land which was sold to another person returns to its original owner, debts are canceled, and those who 

needed to sell themselves into slavery because of debt they could not pay back are freed.  The Torah is mandating active redistribution of wealth.   

On a certain level, these laws make no sense. Return land to original owner?  Don’t you have a right to keep land which you have legally purchased?  Why should it return to the person who sold it? It was their choice to sell, and they should live with the consequences.  Forgive debt?  If you borrowed money – you should be obligated to return that which someone loaned you.  It makes no sense.  

We dig deeper. We look at interpretations which thousands of years ago reinterpreted these laws to that they worked in the real world.  We look at the principles which underlie the law and ask how we can live these values today.   The principle which underlies these laws may be some of the most important to consider at this moment.  If land returns to original owner, then inequities which result in society are addressed. Inevitably wealth would have accumulated in the hands of a few – that is the case today.  The skewed distribution of wealth has profound societal consequences; as does the amount of debt so many carry.  The Torah is challenging us to consider the type of society we want to create – and calls for us to think about how economic inequality might reduce and how crippling debt might be avoided. 

The text challenges us to think creatively.  Is there a way to stimulate equality and reduce inequity?  How do we lift people up?  Education. Opportunity.   

Let’s think together about creative ways to address core causes of inequality. In his book Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell gives a new way to think about how to create equality in society.  He brings the story of a sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter who in the 1970’s was brought in to consult with a company that had been all men and then hired some women. It wanted to understand why the women were not doing as well as the men.   

As she interviewed the women in the company, Kanter slowly realized that the problem wasn’t ability or dysfunctional culture – it was with the proportion of men to women.  Her thesis is that proportion is the key to beginning to address inequality in many areas.  The typical sales team had ten men and one woman.  It’s hard to be the lone woman in an office with ten men. Similarly, it’s hard to be the only person of color, or immigrant, or LGBTQ+, or Jew.  In the study, the women told her that they didn’t feel seen.  They were Women with a capital W - representatives of every stereotype their male coworkers held about women.  Kanter recounts: “They didn’t have a peer group. They were being made into symbols.  They had to stand for their whole category rather than just be themselves.”  Kanter became convinced that there is something uniquely toxic about groups with “skewed proportions,” – lots of one kind of person and very few of another kind.  The key issue in creating the equality that underlies the details of forgiving debts and returning land according to Kanter’s research isn’t whether or not a group was integrated – it was how much it was integrated. To create equality, we have to account for skewed proportions.  

This observation happens in almost every place in society where we have tried to create equity – with gender, with race, with religion, with communities that have diverse political viewpoints.  Gladwell shows how this theory applies to race in schools.  Data was collected showing that where black students made up only a small percentage of a classroom, they scored below the average on test scores.  But when the proportion increased – usually 25% or more, the test-score gap completely vanished.  The black students had caught up.  It wasn’t about particular school, tutoring, economic background – it was about proportion.  If we want to create equality – we must consciously create places where the proper proportions exist so that everyone can thrive.    

Find pride in the laws of our people which call upon us to thoughtfully change society.  In the face of hatred, embrace ethics and activism.  In a world where there is sad loss, come together to comfort each other and imagine what might be.  Chazak Chazak - find courage and strength to hold tight to Judaism’s ethical demands – where we care for the poor and for the earth – v’nitchazek – and let it strengthen you.  Stand tall and thoughtfully work to make the world a place of sacred values seeing one another with care as we repair that which is broken.  Let us honor the memory of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim who lived these values by making them real in our lives.  May their memories be for blessing.