Vayikra Chapter 26 – Transcript

Vayikra Chapter 25: Kedushas Haaretz

We’re reading today Vayikra chapter 25. Whoever made the chapters for some reason got bored of cutting off chapters and he made this very long for no reason that as far as I can tell. We’ll have to do it quickly a little bit. So I’ll just give the framing of this chapter.

As you can see I’ve given a header here. I think in some sense this is a header for all of these, although I made some more headers in between, which is Kedushas Haaretz. In other words, we’ve now discussed how this whole series from the beginning of Kedoshim can be framed as different Kedushos. There’s Kedusha of all the Klal Yisrael, there’s Kedusha of the Kohanim, Kedusha of the Korbanos, we had Kedusha of the Moadim, and then the Avodas Hamikdash, and then what happens with Chilul Hashem.

And now there’s really another way of framing this would be to have an entirely new series starting here, because as you can see there’s a new opening, a new pesicha, says *Vayedaber Hashem el Moshe beHar Sinai*. I mean, besides Parshas Tzav, none of the Parshios in Sefer Vayikra are set up at beHar Sinai. It all started with Ohel Moed. I tend to take this a little less seriously, but there is something going on here, as we’ll see in the next chapter, which is the chapter of the Bris, the *Im Bechukosai*, which is very clearly the retelling, the new level, new story of the Bris, the deal between Hashem and the Bnei Yisrael, which is if they do the mitzvos, they will have things well, and specifically set in the context and the style and the way of Sefer Vayikra. And this already starts that in some sense, as we’ll see in the Bris, that it talks about the mitzvos that are set here.

But in any case, more in general, these are the laws of the land itself. In other words, the ownership of the land, the work of the land. It’s not that we had already in the story of the mitzvah of the Moadim, we had some halachos, but here there’s more clearly another laws of how to interact with the land. So there’s a certain Kedushah, a certain who does this land belong to, and how do we treat the ownership of this land. So that’s really what this is about.

The Mitzvah of Shmita

The first mitzvah is the mitzvah of Shmita. Shmita, and it’s framed very explicitly as a Shabbos. This is not the language that we had before. It was called Shmita. Now it’s called Shabbos. Shabbos is the language of Vayikra. Shabbos is the time, Kodesh Shabbos Lashem, Kodesh Lashem. It will be a Shabbos of the earth, a Shabbos of the earth, and it describes what that means.

For six weeks, six years, you will plant your field, you will plant your, or really prune your vineyard, and the seventh year it will be Shabbos. It will be left Shabbos. You will not do these two things. You will not seed your field, not prune your vineyard, and also not cut, not take what grows from the field. It will be Shabbos.

So those are the things. Of course, the question of what not cutting means is a question, but as it says here, it doesn’t literally mean not cut. It means you will not cut it with your ownership. It will be for you and all your *avdecha amasecha*, *toshavcha*, all the other people around who don’t own, will have all it equal part in it. This language, this whole language, equals very much the same language of Shabbos. Shabbos is a day of rest, and it’s *lecha avdecha amasecha* and so forth. It’s the same thing. This is a Shabbos of the earth.

The Law of Yovel

Now, after this, there’s another law, which is called Yovel. Now, Yovel is even more deeply regulating the ownership of the land, and I will see later even more laws that are more particularly related to this, to the ownership of the land. So Shmita doesn’t really change the ownership. It’s just like Shabbos doesn’t really change the ownership. It’s not like you don’t own your work on Shabbos. It’s more that on Shabbos, you stop the work, and therefore, there’s some equality. There’s some sharing of everything with all the levels of society. And Shmita is similar to that for the entire work of the land.

Now, Yovel, and there’s a *Vesafarta lecha*, this is very much echoing the language. That’s why I said that this whole Parsha reminds us of the Parsha of *Sefirat HaOmer*, which was in the Moadim, the Parsha of the Omer and Shavuos, and it’s literally similar. We count, just like we counted over there, seven weeks. Now, we’re going to count seven years, seven times. So seven years is the Shmita, and the seven times of that, total to be 49 years. And then the 50th year will have a certain Kedushah.

We have over here a Shofar in the seventh month. Again, reminds us of the Shofar. So all of this, this is one way of saying it. I forgot to say one way of saying this is Kedushas Haaretz. Another way of saying it is that this is the broadest level of Moadim. So Moadim have their cycle, the yearly cycle throughout the month, and now there’s also a bi-yearly, a seven-yearly cycle, and a 49-yearly cycle, which is like the greatest moed. Like once in seven years, the whole year is a moed.

And therefore, once in 49 years, we have a Shofar in the seventh month, and the 10th day of the seventh month, which we know that’s Yom Kippur, there’s a Shofar which proclaims Kedush this 50th year, and in that 50th year, what’s the point of this? There’s something called Dror. Dror is translated as freedom, or maybe a specific kind of freedom where people return to their land. As it says, *veshavtem ish el achuzaso veish el mishpachto tashuvu*.

Once we understand this tamim, and in some sense we could see later what this means is just similar, and this is not said here, similar to how in Shmita, there’s people that have sold themselves late into slavery, people that are slaves return to themselves. And the same way people that sold their land, they return to their land. So freedom doesn’t mean being able to go anywhere. Dror means belonging to your land. The land that was sold returns to you somehow. Of course, this has to be understood how the economic system was set up. That makes sense. But that’s the idea of Yovel. Each person goes back to *veshavtem*, because the land belongs to the family. So you go back to your land, that’s going back, returning to your family. This also might be talking about slaves, but these are things that are details that are in contradiction with other places, and so on, that can be discussed.

And now, this is Yovel. Besides that, there’s also the regular in the same way that in Shmita, we don’t work, or in other words, we don’t claim ownership over the fruits of the land. And a similar way in Yovel, we don’t claim ownership over the fruits of the land. That’s the story of Yovel.

Issur Ona’ah in Land Sales

Now, based on this, there is the question of how the sale of the land goes. Like I’m saying, these all parties are regulating how ownership of the land works. And this is called issur, but what it really says is that since sales of land are limited, they’re all limited to this Yovel, therefore, we have to know this is not like something that’s not planned. It’s not like something that just comes from the sky and takes away the land from the people that sold it. What this means is that all transactions about land from all 50 years really are transactions, like really a lease, for the amount of time that is before Yovel.

And therefore, if you sell a field for 50 years, if you sell a field with the assumption that people don’t know maybe or don’t take into account that it will be all backed and you’re cheating the person, so therefore, that’s what it’s saying. You are selling, as it says, *mispar tevuos*. You’re selling really the amount of growth. You’re not really selling the title to the land itself. You’re selling the right to use the land. And here, there’s an ending. There’s a signature. Fear God. I am the God. Don’t cheat your fellow man.

The Blessing for Shmita Observance

Now, there is, as I said, this parasha connects us, brings us very much to the conditions called *Im Bechukosai*. If we follow the law, we will have peace and happiness and success. And if not, not. And then specifically, this mitzvah. And I think this is how we should read this specific so-called blessing or schar that it’s promised here for Shmita.

It says, because like we have this general Pesach, also a language that follows many times. And then, you will live in the land in security. You will have the fruit you will eat. You will be sated. You will live in security. It says twice. You have this envelope structure here. And then, you should not worry. So, of course, there’s like a question here. There’s a question that the Pesach acknowledges. If we give out, we will share our food with everyone every seventh year, we will see that maybe we’ll become poor. Maybe we won’t have enough. And the Pesach is against that, going against that question and promising that you will have enough. And it gives like some detail. It says, you will have my blessing. The sixth year, we’ll have enough for all three years. And the eighth year, you will have enough.

But I don’t think this should be taken as some kind of promise, not necessarily as a promise of a miracle. Like, we should assume that every seventh year, there was miracles going on. I don’t think that doesn’t seem to be what it says here. What it says here is basically, don’t worry. These laws are for your good. And it will work out. The blessing will help you. And that’s the general blessing for following the Torah. It’s not like a new special blessing for following Shmita. I know there’s other interpretations of this. But this is, I think, should be read in that context.

Now, and also, I think that when it says, what it means is that you need to plan, just like we learned before, that when you sell something before Yovel, don’t say, oh, suddenly God came and took it back. I’m sorry. No, you should plan before. And if you don’t plan before, you’ve cheated. In the same way, if you’re not going to plan before Shmita to have money, like Shabbos, just like Shabbos, the Shabbos magic that we have food on Shabbos, although we don’t cook on Shabbos. No. We have to prepare. In the same way, this is the position that says you should prepare. And of course, God is promising that it will help. There will be a bracha. But you should prepare in the sixth year for the seventh year, in which you’ll not be able to work.

Geulas Haaretz – Redemption of Land

Okay. And now, we get into more details of the regulation of the land sales and how it cannot be entirely sold. It cannot be sold forever. There’s no ultimate sales of land. Because the reasoning given here, all land really belongs to Hashem. That’s the Kedushah of the land, right? You are just, you might be, but you’re still strangers in some sense. You’re just foreigners living on my land. And therefore, you have to have geula.

What does geula mean? Geula is redemption of the land. If someone sells his land, and as we said, land really belongs to families, although in some sense, they do belong to one person, because one person can sell it. But in another sense, it seems like land belongs to families. And therefore, your brother can

Laws of Houses

Now, this is the law of a regular field—that’s the laws of Yovel. Our fields are made for agriculture. But what about a house? Houses are different. Houses can be sold, but there are limitations to them.

If you sell a house, it can be redeemed up to a year. Up to a year, you can still redeem your house, and otherwise it stays the buyer’s. That’s a house that’s built in a city that has a wall—a walled city. That’s the law of a walled city.

A house that is built in the fields and not in a walled city—like in a village, in a place where it’s really part of the agricultural lands—then it will have the same law of the fields.

Another exception to this law is the Leviim, who don’t really have any agricultural lands. The Leviim have only their houses. Therefore, their houses also have, like Yovel—because otherwise, the Leviim will be left, if they sell their house, they’ll be left with nothing. Everyone else, at least, is left with their fields, but the Leviim are not left with that. Therefore, they have to have that.

Prohibition of Interest (Ribbis)

Now, there’s one more law, also an economic law, which regulates ownership of stuff. It says: if your friend, your brother, will be poor, you should help him. And how should you help him? You should not take from him neshech, you should not take from him interest, ribbis.

I think this is very much related to this whole subject. If someone is poor, sometimes he temporarily will sell his field, and also temporarily will take a loan from someone else—like until the next harvest, and so on. That’s where the law of not taking ribbis comes in, in the same context. And here we have another signature: Ani Hashem.

Laws of Jewish Slaves

Now, just like I discussed, there’s two things that we can sell: there’s the land, the fields, the houses, and the people. In the same way, if your friend, your brother, sells himself as a slave—number one, even while he’s your slave, you should not work for him. He should be like a wage worker. Don’t treat him—he’s not really a slave. He’s not dissimilar to how the land doesn’t get sold, it doesn’t really transfer the title. Just like a slave is also really just like an employee.

And the same way, also he will go out. Just like the land—and just like the land belongs to me—the same way the people belong to me. I’ve taken them out of Mitzrayim. That makes them my people. Therefore, that’s their Kedusha—that’s the Kedusha of people. And they cannot be sold.

This is very nice language, because it says, “Lo sirdeh bo b’farech.” This is literally what Mitzrayim did, right? So don’t do that. Don’t have that kind of relationship to your slave. You can have a slave, but it’s really more like an employer-employee relationship.

Non-Jewish Slaves

Now, this is specifically for the Yidden that were slaves in Mitzrayim. The goyim that are around you—in other words, the non-Jewish nations—you can buy slaves and slave girls from them. Same for the toshavim. Not only people that live around you, the ones that live within you, or their families. As we discussed, if they were already born, there’s like birthright citizenship, but still can be slaves. And those slaves will not go out in Yovel. They will even be passed down to your children as part of inheritance and so on.

Jewish Slave Sold to a Ger Toshav

Now, one more law is that if a Yid is sold as a slave to a ger toshav, to a goy—obviously he can’t be sold to a goy far away, or not really probably sold to a goy that lives there—then he can be redeemed, similar to how a land can be redeemed. But this is a specific law. Maybe every slave can be redeemed. This is a specific law: that a Yid that is sold to a goy can be redeemed by his brother, by his uncle, by his cousin, anyone from his family again.

And they will be working in the same way as Yovel. They will make a calculation of how much he’s worth per year and give back that amount of years. And it goes into detail, as it does in these kind of things, gives us the exact description. If there’ll be many years, he’ll have to pay a lot of money. If it’s a few years, it’ll be less. And that will be the law.

Also, just like there’s a law that says that a Yid should not let a Yid work hard, or the kind of work that Mitzrayim did—in the same way, do not allow the goy that bought a Yid to work him b’farech. And then the same way, even then, he will go out in Yovel.

And there’s another finish: “Ki li Bnei Yisrael avadim, asher hotzeisi osam me’eretz Mitzrayim, Ani Hashem Elokeichem.”

Conclusion: The Motto of Sefer Vayikra

Here starts already chapter 26, but I’m pretty sure that really, this belongs to the end of this chapter, of this series. And the end is a repeat, I think, of the most important things in the Torah, the most important things for Sefer Vayikra.

Do not make elilim, do not make idols, and maskis, which is a kind of an idol. Ani Hashem.

And then another—possibly that’s the motto, I think, of Sefer Vayikra. It says twice in this book, at least: “Es Shabsosai tishmoru u’mikdashi tira’u.” Shabbos and Kedusha. These are the two things. As we saw, there’s Shabbos—there’s many kinds of Shabbos. There’s Mikdash—there’s many kinds of Mikdash. “Es Shabsosai tishmoru u’mikdashi tira’u, Ani Hashem.”

And that’s the summary of all of Sefer Vayikra.