Dvar Torah on Parshat Behar

During the Obama presidency, the argument about the relative merits of capitalism and socialism has come to the fore, with Obama being accused by many on the right of being a socialist or communist, and wanting to - gasp! - “share the wealth”, while people on the left are attacking the excesses, inequities, and failures of contemporary capitalism. The question as to what is the Torah’s position on the issue – is Judaism capitalist? Socialist? Something else? - is once again being discussed widely. As our economies undergo very far-reaching changes, we ponder the impact of globalization and new technologies, the emergence of a class of super-rich individuals and multi-national corporations, along with large, stubborn areas of extreme poverty, and look to the sources for some Jewish ideas about how an economy should be run. 

Parshat Behar begins with the mitzvah of shmitta – the Sabbatical year. Every seventh year agricultural work is forbidden, and the crops and produce that grow are meant to be shared by all – anyone and everyone who wants to can eat from the fruit of the land. (This year is actually a shmitta year here in Israel, with quite a few practical implications.)

The Torah elaborates: “And the Sabbath of the land shall be for you all to eat from, for you, for your male and female servants, for your hired worker and to the sojourner who dwells among you [understood by the Rabbis to be non-Jews]. And for your animals and to the wild beast which is in your land, all your produce will be for them to be eaten.” The Torah has listed just about everyone, every living thing, as being allowed to eat freely of whatever grows in the Sabbatical year; the Ibn Ezra explains in his commentary that the words “shall be for you all to eat from” refer to “the entire world”. Everyone is included; every living being is allowed to eat freely of the land’s bounty.

The Rabbis, in the Midrash and Talmud, emphasize the universality of this law by stating that the rich as well as the poor may eat freely. The shmitta year is not really focused, as many other laws pertaining to the sharing of food and produce are, on giving sustenance to the poor: the owner of a field may eat of his own produce, as long as others are free to do so as well. This goes beyond a law about charity, and seems to be about something else, something more profound and far-reaching .

The sharing that is at the center of the Sabbatical year, along with the commandment to refrain from agricultural work, would seem to go deep into basic questions of ownership, rights, and fairness. Although the Torah is certainly basically capitalist, in that it recognizes ownership and its rights, seems to assume a free-market society, accepts that there will be rich and poor and does not attempt to legislate away that dichotomy, it also demands a fairly high rate of taxation to create a safety net for the poor and marginalized, including a system of tithes, charitable giving, interest-free loans, agricultural gifts (the corner of one’s field, dropped harvest, un-harvested material left in the field, etc.), along with the oft-repeated insistence that we especially care for the widow, orphan, and stranger. Translated into today’s conversation, this certainly should be described as a European-type social democratic system, with a free market system along with an extensive welfare system. Translated into political or social action, and without going into details, a Torah perspective would be in line with what is usually called left-wing economic policy, a world-view that states that, while we may accumulate wealth, we must share it with the poor, the marginalized, the disadvantaged, and the unfortunate.

The fact that we no longer live in an agrarian society unfortunately functions as a Get Out of Jail Free card, seemingly exempting us from the demands the Torah makes on us to support the poor and less fortunate, as we have not taken the steps to translate the various, mostly agricultural, forms of charity into their modern equivalents. This is where the Sabbatical year might help us. Although it, too, is essentially agricultural, and, for that reason, has not been translated into the urban reality in which we live (although, here in Israel, that process is beginning), it should be seen as a wake up call, and a very real and relevant challenge to us all. Shmitta goes well beyond charity, and teaches us something essential about solidarity, brotherhood, and fairness. The sharing by all – the rich and poor, including non-Jews, strangers, even animals (!) - speaks to a deeper insight than the idea of helping the poor. It tells us that, ultimately, though you may be entitled to own more than the next guy, on some deeper level, you are the same as the next guy. The fact that Sabbatical year produce is not set aside for the poor, but, rather, is shared by all, speaks to a shared humanity, or, more precisely, since animals are included, a shared experience of being a living being. Shmitta teaches us a profound insight into the ultimate sanctity and shared reality of all life: the land we own is not really ours, and the things we have don’t really belong to us. That land, and those things, are really God’s way of sustaining life, all life, equally, and we must always be sure that, while we own what we own and have what we have, life, universally, is being sustained and supported. My rights of ownership can never be allowed to get in the way of that holy demand.

If we learn this lesson, if we assimilate the fact that all living things deserve the support system they need in order to live, have a right to it, and that that right trumps the rights of ownership and property, as real as they may be, we may begin to work towards a truly just society, go beyond the language of charity and kindness, and try to achieve the kind of brotherhood of all living things that shmitta points to.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix