Some thoughts on Behar/Bechukotai

This coming Shabbat, we will read the double parshah of Behar/Bechukotai. It is found in Leviticus 25:1 - 27:34.

I thought preparing a short discussion of the weekly parshah would be a relatively simple task, but -- as so often happens when one studies Torah -- I found myself going in an unexpected direction.

Here's the way it works. Sometimes, for some people, that is. You read the text from the Torah and start thinking about it. Maybe you read a few commentaries written by learned men and women from the past and the present. As you continue to think, other things get mixed in. Maybe something going on in your life; maybe something going on in the world around you. And before you know it, you have a different perspective on what the Torah is teaching.

I suppose that is why we read the Torah over and over again. Each year we read the end of the Torah, the death of Moses, and immediately start again with Creation. Each year, we find that something different speaks to us, or that where we are in our lives brings a different understanding of what we have read so many times before.

Behar/Bechukotai is what we call a double parshah -- two for the price of one. This happens because Jews run on a lunar calendar and the rest of the world runs on a solar calendar. Because Jewish months are not quite the same length, every so often we toss in an extra month so that our fall holidays continue to occur in the fall and our spring holidays in the spring. No biggie -- there are whole books (and web sites) devoted to keeping track of these things.

Behar means "on the mountain". In this case, the mountain is Mt. Sinai, where the Law was given to Moses and accepted by b'nai Israel. As you might expect, Behar contains many laws. Bechukotai continues this theme -- it means "by/about My laws". These parshiot are the last two readings in the book of Vayikra (Leviticus) and, as just about anyone who leyns Torah would say, about time. There's not a lot of story in this book and parts of it are hard to slog through.

Behar starts with laws concerning the shmittah year, the seventh year in which land must be given a rest with no planting or harvesting going on. Then there's a discussion of the Jubilee, the 50th year, in which a variety of things happen. Both the shmittah years and the Jubilee years apply only to the land of Israel. After that, there are a number of laws about dealing with your "brother" or "fellow" -- in either case, these laws refer to how we are to treat fellow Jews.

Bechukotai is known primarily for a long list of rather gruesome curses, though some blessings bracket the curses and there are more laws about vows and assessments toward the end of the parshah.

Now that we've laid the ground work, here's what happens.

Two news stories caught my attention over the past week. In one, a homeless man came to the defense of a woman who was being attacked and ended up being stabbed himself. He lay on the sidewalk, bleeding, for over an hour while people walked past him. Some stopped to look; one even took a picture with a cell phone. By the time someone called 911 and EMTs responded, this man had died.

The second story is even more chilling for me. An off-shore drilling rig, which exploded while killing at least 11 people, is now spewing oil into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This story is very personal for me. I used to work in the Oil & Gas division of the Department of Interior in New Orleans, reviewing permits for offshore drilling rigs. I was there far too long ago for this particular rig to have been something I would have had any responsibility for, but I know a lot about offshore drilling rigs and the life that the workers on these rigs lead. The Gulf Coast waters were my back yard for a significant portion of my life. I know just how fragile the ecology of the Gulf coast is and my heart aches every time I see the pictures from the Gulf. When I read the place names, I can picture each. And I can imagine the devastation coming to places I have known and loved.

So what do these two stories have to do with this week's Torah reading? Good question.

Shmittah is practice of leaving the land to its own devices every seventh year -- neither planting crops nor harvesting perennial crops such as fruit trees. These laws were given, at least in part, to teach the nomadic Jews about stewardship of the land they would one day live upon. Not only were they being taught respect for the land, but also respect for the owner of the land -- who is not any individual, but God. God gives us the use of the land.... and it is our responsibility to take care of God's land. If we extend this notion of God's ownership of the land to the entire world, what do oil spills say about our use of the gift of God's Creation?

Ethical treatment is primarily geared at treatment of fellow Jews. Many of the laws in parshah Bechukotai deal with how we are to treat our "brothers", meaning other Jews. We must not cheat them in business affairs, or charge them interest, or -- should a fellow Jew become indebted to us and give us service to pay off that debt -- treat him like we treat our slaves. We don't, as a rule, own slaves these days, but the principle stands -- we should respect and uphold the community of fellow Jews.

First ourselves and our families, then the Jews in our local community, then Jews as a worldwide community, and only after that do we have a responsibility to non-Jews. But what does it say about us if we can ignore any person in need?

What I am taking away from my study of Behar/Bechukotai this week, this year, is something that I already know, but which perhaps I need to reminded of. I have a responsibility toward the Earth. I have a responsibility toward other people. As Hillel says in Mishnah Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 1:14:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am for myself alone, what am I?
And if not now, when?