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>> torah portion
ihe Land Of Israel: To
Whom Does It Belong?
Parshat Behar: Leviticus 25:1-26:2;
Jeremiah 32:6-27.
L
ong before the Arab-Israeli
conflict, God made it clear
to the Jewish people that the
Land of Israel belongs to neither the
Jews nor any other people.
Our Torah teaches that the
land belongs to God alone.
Parshat Behar says this
in many different ways as
it details the laws of the
Sabbatical Year and the
Jubilee Year, each of which
describes practices which
restrict our use of the land.
For example, we are
forbidden to farm the land
during the Sabbatical Year.
In addition, land that has
been sold automatically returns to the
original owner at the conclusion of the
50-year Jubilee cycle. In case it hasn't
made it clear enough that ownership
of property was ultimately temporary,
Leviticus 25:23 says,"... for the land
is mine [God's]; for you are strangers
and sojourners with Me."
In next week's parshah, God will
tell the Children of Israel that if they
choose to flout the law by working
the land during the Sabbatical Year,
they will be expelled from the land in
punishment so that the land can make
up for the Sabbatical Years that they
didn't allow the land to rest!
As we celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut,
Israel Independence Day, this week,
we might ask, what is the proper way
for the Jewish people to live on the
land (God's land) now that the State
of Israel exists and Jews have political
control of the land?
While we can approach this ques-
tion from several angles, one is surely
to ask about the extent to which the
land is ours, and what that means
about non-Jews living in Israel. A
recent event brought this theoretical
issue into stark relief.
A statement released by a sig-
nificant group of municipal rabbis in
Israel last December claimed that it is
forbidden for Jews to sell apartments
to non-Jews in Israel. Debate immedi-
ately erupted both in Israel and within
the Jewish community in the U.S.
about the conflicting legal opinions
and values found within Jewish tradi-
tion.
In the meantime, the question of
the sociological reality is laid bare.
Underlying the rabbis' statement
is the claim that Jews are in charge
of the land while others
are strangers to the land.
How jarring then to be
confronted in this week's
parshah with God's claim
that we, too, are strangers
in the land!
God's statement to the
Jewish people is not simply
about property rights. It is
an existential statement,
a warning even, about the
way we understand what it
means to live on the land.
It is a statement of the temporary
nature of all life and of our respon-
sibility towards God in terms of the
way we choose to live on the land.
If we are "strangers and sojourners"
ourselves, surely we have a responsi-
bility to heed the Torah's command
that "when a stranger resides with
you in your land, you shall not wrong
him." (Leviticus 19:33).
The political reality of the State
of Israel is complex, but complex-
ity is no excuse for ignoring Jewish
traditions of seeking peace, fairness,
and the ever-present directive to
remember that we too are "strangers
and sojourners" on the land. How
fortunate we are to live at a moment
in Jewish history when the Jewish
people can control their destiny on
the Land of Israel. It would be a trag-
ic moment to forget what it means to
be a stranger.
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May 12 4, 2011
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