Behar-Bechukotai 5783-2023

Some scholars point to this law as the earliest form of the agricultural process that is today known as “crop rotation.” The land is allowed to rest, its nutrients restored, enabling the land to become more fertile and productive in the future years.

The seventh year was not merely a respite from work, it was, in fact, a national educational exercise that culminated in a massive educational celebration for both men and women, as well as children. According to Maimonides Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Chagigah 3:3, this massive educational assemblage, took place on the first day of the intermediate days of Sukkot, on the year following the Shemita observance. As the Torah in Deuteronomy 31:10-13, commands, the people of Israel would gather together in Jerusalem for what was known as הַקְהֵל—Hakhel. In a most impressive ceremony, the King of Israel (not the priests or the rabbis!) would take out a Torah scroll and begin to teach the people. Even resident aliens were taught the teachings and duties of the Torah at this Hakhel gathering.

The Hertz Bible commentary cites the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus who notes that most ancient societies kept intellectual knowledge restricted to the elite. Moses and the Jewish people, in effect, revolutionized education by disclosing the great ideas of the Torah to the entire people of Israel, men, women and children, thus exposing the full nation to knowledge. Hertz proudly cites F. Verinder, a non-Jewish English scholar, who expressed his amazement at the Jewish Sabbatical year practice, declaring that it is the equivalent of sending the English worker once every seven years to a year’s course at a university to learn science, law, literature, and theology.

Not everyone was so favorably impressed by this practice. The Roman historian Tacitus (55-117 C.E.) ridiculed the observance of the Sabbatical year, attributing it to laziness on the part of the Jewish people. On the other hand, Alexander the Great (356 B.C.E.-323 B.C.E.) and even the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar (100 B.C.E.-44 B.C.E.) relieved the Jews from paying some of their taxes during the seventh year when they did not work their fields.

Just as the land lay fallow every seven years, every fiftieth year, with the arrival of Jubilee–the Yovel, the land returned to its original owners.

Modern scholars speculate about the origin of the word “Yovel,” suggesting that it might have originally meant “ram,” because of the ram’s horn that was sounded ushering in the Jubilee. Others say that it has to do with the root of the Hebrew word for “release.” The Ramban says that the word means “to transport,” because at Yovel everything is returned to its original independence and to its original root, which is, of course, G-d Al-mighty.

In the Yovel year, as in the Shemita, the land again lies fallow. All Hebrew servants receive their liberty, but most importantly, all landed property that had been sold by its original owners during the previous 49 years, reverted back to those owners, allowing families that received those tribal lands when the land was first apportioned during the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, to return to their original patrimony. According to the rabbis, this restoration reflected the powerful message recorded in Psalms 24:1: לַהשם הָאָרֶץ וּמְלוֹאָהּ, תֵּבֵל וְיֹשְׁבֵי בָהּ, The earth and its fullness belong to G-d, the world and its inhabitants.

The Yovel represents one of Judaism’s most revolutionary contributions to humanity. Its implementation and practice meant that no person was destined to be poor forever. If a person’s fate had taken a turn for the worse, and due to business and agricultural reversals had to sell his real estate, there was always the hope and anticipation that, come Yovel, the land would be restored to the original owner. Furthermore, the descendants of the person who had become poor, now enjoyed the same advantages along with all the other land owners, receiving a new start with the return of their ancestral family estate.