I TORAH PORTION
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Liberty and Jubilee:
A Return To Freedom
RABBI NORMAN T. ROMAN
Special to The Jewish News
0
ur double Torah
portion for this week
contains one of those
famous quotations which is
more well-known in the
American community be-
cause of its secular usage
than because of its specific
Jewish connotation:
"Proclaim liberty through-
out the land, unto all its in-
habitants."
As a phrase on the Liberty
Bell and as a universal dream
of freedom, these words bring
hope. But as a slogan of what
Shabbat
Behar-Bechukotai:
Leviticus
25:1-27:34,
Jeremiah
16:19-17:14
would indeed happen in our
day, much of the meaning has
been altered.
"Proclaim liberty" was first
expressed as an aspect of the
laws concerning the seventh
year of release — shmitta —
and the 50th year — the
jubilee — which followed the
seventh seven-year period.
The passage reads as
follows: "When you enter the
land that I give you, the land
shall observe a sabbath of the
Lord. Six years you may sow
your field and six years you
may prune your vineyard and
gather in its yield. But in the
seventh year, the land shall
have a sabbath of complete
rest, a sabbath of the Lord .. .
You shall count of seven
weeks of years — seven times
seven years — so that the
period of seven weeks of years
gives you a total of 49 years
. . . You shall hallow the 50th
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.
Just as we are to rest on the
seventh day, so the land is to
observe a sabbath of the Lord.
And just as the land returns
to its free state once every 50
years, so do we human beings
observe our jubilee of liberty
and release.
If the Shabbat is to serve as
an opportunity for us to
refresh and recreate
Norman T Roman is rabbi at
Temple Kol Ami.
ourselves, how much the more
so should the jubilee provide
a year of personal growth and
contentment. And, according-
ly, God will provide our
sustenance during the rest
years; such is our blessing.
Whether the "liberty" or
"release" of the jubilee year
was actually practiced in an-
cient times is a matter of
much scholarly debate. The
idea, however, is a magnifi-
cent one. The notion that, no
matter what an individual's
status — free or slave, rich or
poor — he could return home
with head held high, is total-
ly consistent with the TDrah's
teaching that each person is
worthy of respect and dignity.
The lesson is more than
equal rights or civil liberties,
for these are associated with
national identities and
allegiances. Here, liberty is a
concept aligned with redemp-
tion, the very goal and pur-
pose of humanity on earth.
Did any other people or
culture recognize the need
and provide an opportunity
for the poor man to break his
cycle of poverty and begin
again? Has any 'other
religious community permit-
ted the regular occasion of
one who has "left" to .
"return" physically to his or
her family? The jubilee year,
not coincidentally, was to
begin on Yom Kippur, the Day
of Atonement, when all are to
return spiritually.
So it is that Rashi inter-
prets the name jubilee (yovel
in hebrew) as referring to the
ram and shofar whose horn
blast ushers in the 50th year.
And the Hebrew word for
liberty or release — dror —
derives from the verb dur, to
dwell: the liberty each person
has to dwell wherever he or
she wishes.
Ibn Ezra provides a beauti-
ful explanation for the word
dror: It is the name of a rare,
singing bird, with the most
memorable song of all things
that fly. But its particular
nature is that it can only sing
sweetly when it is free. If
caught and taken away from
its home, the bird not only
stops singing, but starves
itself to death.
The original meaning and
importance of the jubilee and
its proclamation of liberty
have beenoverlooked: The
lesson cannot be limited to
only a realization that slaves
must go free once in a
lifetime.
The release and freedom of
which the Torah speaks is a
state of mind as much as it is
a point of law.
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