MAY 11 • 2023 | 55

him, “Son of man, can these 
bones live?” Ezekiel replied, 
“God, you alone know.”
Then the bones came 
together, and grew flesh and 
skin, and began to breathe, 
and live again. Then God 
said: “Son of man, these 
bones are the whole house 
of Israel. They say, ‘Our 
bones are dried up. Avdah 
tikvatenu, our hope is lost.’ 
Therefore, prophesy and say 
to them: ‘This is what God 
says: My people, I am going 
to open your graves and 
bring you up from them; I 
will bring you back to the 
Land of Israel.’”
It was this passage that 
Naftali Herz Imber was allud-
ing to in 1877 when he wrote, 
in the song that became 
Israel’s national anthem, 
“Hatikva,” the phrase “Od lo 
avdah tikvatenu, Our hope is 
not yet lost.”
Little could he have 
known that 70 years later, 
one-third of the Jewish peo-
ple would have become, in 
Auschwitz and Treblinka and 
Bergen-Belsen, a valley of 
dry bones. Who could have 
been blamed for saying “Our 
bones are dried up, our hope 
is lost.”
And yet, a mere three years 
after standing eyeball to eye-
ball with the angel of death, 
the Jewish people, by pro-
claiming the State of Israel, 
made a momentous affirma-
tion of life, as if it had heard 

across the centuries the echo 
of God’s words to Ezekiel: 
“I will bring you back to the 
land of Israel.”
And a day will one day 
come when the story of Israel 
in modern times will speak 
not just to Jews, but to all 
who believe in the power of 
the human spirit as it reaches 
out to God, as an everlast-
ing symbol of the victory of 
life over death, hope over 
despair.
Israel has taken a barren 
land and made it bloom 
again. It’s taken an ancient 
language, the Hebrew of the 
Bible, and made it speak 
again. It’s taken the West’s 
oldest faith and made it 
young again. It’s taken a tat-
tered, shattered nation and 
made it live again. Israel is 
the country whose national 
anthem, “Hatikva,” means 
“hope.” Israel is the home of 
hope. 

The digital re-release of Israel: 

Home of Hope is available at www.

RabbiSacks.org/israel75, along with a 

captivating new animated video and 

accompanying teaching resources. 

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948-

2020) was a global religious leader, 

philosopher, the author of more than 

25 books, and moral voice for our 

time. He served as Chief Rabbi of 

the United Hebrew Congregations 

of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 

2013. Rabbi Sacks passed away in 

November 2020. His series of essays 

on the weekly Torah portion, titled 

“Covenant & Conversation” will con-

tinue to be shared and distributed 

around the world. 

“SOMEHOW HEAVEN AND EARTH 
MET IN THE JEWISH HEART, 
LIFTING PEOPLE TO DO WHAT 
OTHERWISE SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE.”

— RABBI LORD JONATHAN SACKS

Radical Equity
L

ike most 21st century 
American Jews, I often 
find myself at a loss 
when confronted by ancient 
Jewish texts relating to agri-
culture. Rabbinic ordination, 
plus over a decade in Jewish 
education, is not 
enough to remove the 
feelings of confusion 
that accompany my 
study of ancient agrar-
ian practices, which 
are simply too foreign 
to my reality for me to 
understand them.
This confusion 
is why I frequently 
have trouble finding 
meaning in this week’s 
double Torah portion, 
much of which deals 
with the laws of shmit-
tah, the agricultural 
sabbatical year. During this 
year, the Torah forbids land-
owners from cultivating their 
crops and declares any growth 
to be made accessible to any-
one who is in financial need 
(Exodus 23:10-11).
In the series of curses that 
follow the laws of shmittah, we 
are told that God foresees scat-
tering us among the nations 
while our land lies desolate. 
Why? As a consequence of not 
observing shmittah: The curse 
is that if you don’t observe 
the laws of shmittah, God will 
purge you from the land and 
it will lie desolate to make up 
for all of the lapsed shmittah 
years (Leviticus 26:33-35; also 
the commentary of Rashbam 
to Leviticus 26:46, where he 
writes that all of the curses 
listed come about as a result of 
neglecting the laws of shmit-
tah).
Why is the violation of 
shmittah so severe? What is 

it that prompts such extreme 
consequences when the shmit-
tah year is not observed?
In his commentary on 
Leviticus 25:2, Rabbi Shmuel 
David Luzzatto (1800-1865, 
Italy) writes: “That the pro-
duce of this year is owner-
less is a compassion to the 
poor, for it equates rich 
and poor and humbles the 
haughtiness of the rich 
and reminds them that all 
humans are equal.”
Rabbi Luzzatto high-
lights here the role that 
shmittah plays in the 
Torah’s radical theory of 
economic equality. When 
the land lies fallow, its 
produce growing wild 
and its owners are not 
allowed to sow or harvest, 
absolutely everyone in 
society has equal access to that 
produce regardless of their 
economic status.
The Torah guarantees one 
year in every seven for every-
one to not only feel what it’s 
like to live without a distinc-
tion between rich and poor, 
for everyone to be equally 
dependent on the land, but 
also to level the playing field 
and allow those who have 
previously been economically 
disadvantaged a leg up in the 
coming years.
If, like me, you’ve ever had 
trouble finding meaning in the 
concept of shmittah, remem-
ber: It’s not about rules and 
regulations about how or when 
to work the land (or not); it’s 
about reminding us that no 
matter how much we own, we 
are all inherently equal. 

Rabbi Michael Langer is a Jewish 

Studies instructor at Frankel Jewish 

Academy in West Bloomfield.

TORAH PORTION

Rabbi 
Michael 
Langer

Parshat 

Behar/

Bechukotei: 

Leviticus 

25:1-27:34; 

Jeremiah 

16:19-17:14.

