Dvar Torah on Parshat Behar

In Parshat Behar, there is a beautiful little section which teaches us the laws of interest-free loans. We are told (Vayikra, 35; 35-38) that if your brother is experiencing financial difficulties, you must support him by giving him an interest-free loan. This law is applicable for people who are born Jewish, converts, and even non-Jewish living among us, who renounce idol worship. This is a really powerful idea: when we hear that one of our Fellow-citizens is having financial difficulties, we are told to extend him or her a free loan, in order to help him get back on his feet. Many Jewish communities, over the centuries, have really stepped up to the plate on this one, establishing free-loan societies to help the financially-challenged among us in a way which enables them to, hopefully, come out of their difficulties and get back on their feet. 

This law has  an interesting epilogue. After the prohibition against interest, the Torah reminds us that "I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God."

The Rabbis (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubot, 110b) read this verse in a remarkable way. They tell us that he who lives in Israel is seen as someone who has a God, whereas he who leaves Israel is like someone who worships idols. God really did give us the land of Canaan "to be our God." Outside of it, He is not. I need not underscore the radical Zionist nature of this Rabbinic statement, as it is self-evident: it is only in Israel that we truly have a relationship with God.

Why this should be so is crystal clear to some, less clear to others. The various commentaries make efforts to explain it. I would like to look at the Sforno's (Italy,1475-1550) explanation. He focuses on an interesting grammatical feature of these verses. They begin in the singular, addressing the individual Jew:  כי ימוך אחיך, "If your [singular] brother is having financial trouble"; והחזקת בו,  "you [singular] must support him", etc. Then, at the end of the section, which reminds us that "I am the Lord your God who took you all out of Egypt, to give you all the land of Canaan... etc." the verse switches to the plural, addressing the entire people. The Sforno points out that this is to stress the collective nature of our ultimate religious and national goal: to get all of the Jewish people to see God as their God, and relate to Him as such, as the verse concludes:  להיות לכם לאלוקים  - "to be to all of you a God". He explains that for this reason the verse stresses, in the plural, the giving of the land of Canaan to the Jewish people, so that He will be our God.  It is the Jewish national home, the STATE of Israel, which is so crucial in achieving the Torah's ultimate purpose:

 ולכן ראוי שיהיה סדר המדינות בכם באופן שתוכלו כלכם לחיות זה עם זה ותעזרו זה את זה להשלים המכוון - "Therefore it is fitting that you should have the arrangements of nation-states for yourselves, so that you can all live with one another and help one another to achieve the ultimate goal [of perfecting your relationship with God]".    

The Sforno is explaining that only when we see ourselves as a nation, and arrange to live together as a nation, in our own state, our homeland (where else?), that we can, together, helping one another, achieve the ultimate goal of a relationship with God. Writing over 400 years before the creation of the State of Israel, the Sforno understood that only as a nation, living fully as Jews, can we hope to achieve the goals of the Torah. We do our mitzvot (like making interest-free loans to those who need them) as individuals, but the ultimate goal is collective.  A shul, a Yeshiva, a community center, a school, a Hillel House, are all nice things, but they miss the point, as they don't begin to allow us to really relate to God and His Torah as we should: all together, interacting with one another in the deepest and broadest ways possible, taking full responsibility for all the aspects of the lives of all our fellow-Jews - and non-Jews among us - as sovereign Jews, fully responsible for all that happens in our country.  We can only live the life the Torah asks us to live by creating a nation, the country that the Torah envisions us living in, rooted in the values exemplified by the law of interest-free loans: compassion, sensitivity, generosity, and good will. It's nice to run a good kiddush, or a nice after-school program, or shul weekend, but dealing together with the real issues of running a just, fair, and compassionate country, running a Jewish State, is our ultimate goal.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix