Leviticus 25:39 informs us that impoverished Israelites are the responsibility of their kinsmen. The Israelite community is required to take in those who are destitute, integrating them into their households as hired or bound laborers (כְּשָׂכִ֥יר כְּתוֹשָׁ֖ב יִהְיֶ֣ה עִמָּ֑ךְ), but not as slaves. Ties are broken between them and their Israelite masters during the Jubilee year when these servants (who I reiterate, are not slaves according to Leviticus) are set free. Leviticus 25:43 insists upon humane treatment, expressly prohibiting ruthless behavior toward them. Fittingly, as a reminder that God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt (Leviticus 25:42), no Israelite is permitted to enslave a fellow Israelite who is indigent. This is in marked contrast to the Israelite debt and chattel slaves referred to in Exodus 21:2 and Deuteronomy 15:12 who can be bought and sold by other Israelites.

Disturbingly, the historical memory of the Exodus does not forbid Israelite ownership of Israelite and non-Israelite slaves. But more unsettling is Parashat Behar’s insistence that Israelites take care of their impoverished kinsmen turning them into hired laborers (Leviticus 25:39), while non-Israelites can be purchased as slaves and held in perpetuity with no recourse to freedom (Lev. 25:45). This dichotomy forces us to confront an unacceptable ethnic distinction whereby Israelites experiencing hardship are taken in and employed as hired workers; non-Israelites are enslaved, whatever the circumstances. Memories of the Egyptian taskmasters reverberate for me here in an inverted image of Israelites lording themselves over their non-Israelite neighbors in allowable relationships of master-slave. And while there is no narrative material in Behar to flesh out what this master-slave relationship actually looked like after the Exodus, the mere fact that the biblical account in Leviticus permits Israelites to enslave anyone at all feels utterly unjust. Shouldn’t our liberation from Egypt teach us that we must never enslave others, no matter who they are? Are we doing enough to confront this passage in Behar and acknowledge that the Israelites participated in maintaining the institution of slavery?

No doubt, it is difficult for us to come to terms with a biblical text that draws stark distinctions between the treatment of Israelites and non-Israelites, not to mention its allowance of slavery. Indeed, this has led some commentators to overlook references to slavery in this parashah, or to rationalize these references as representative of a type of slavery entirely distinct from Egyptian slavery. Some have even gone so far as to say that the practice of Israelite slavery ceased to exist, that is, despite the absence of any clear biblical prohibition. But where does that that leave us?

Recently, I was in Charleston, South Carolina, for Shabbat morning services at , one of the oldest synagogues in the United States, where I had the opportunity to think about these verses in Behar and contemplate how they might speak to us today. The congregation dates to 1749 and the synagogue structure to 1792. Rebuilt after a fire in Charleston in 1838 and replaced in 1840 by the structure that remains in use, the colonnaded majestic building on Hassel Street in the heart of downtown Charleston is an architectural marvel and a testament to a Jewish community with deep roots in the South. At the rededication ceremony in 1840 the head rabbi, Reverend Gustavus Poznanski, said, “This synagogue is our Temple, this city our Jerusalem.”[1] And yet, as I was soon to learn, the building and rebuilding of this edifice, as is the case with many buildings in Charleston, was built by slaves.[2]

In recent years Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim has publicly acknowledged its complex and painful connection to Black slavery in America. During the 18th and 19th centuries Charleston’s Jews owned slaves, fought with the Confederacy against the Union, and preached from their pulpits that the Bible supported the ownership of slaves. Such recognition led to the display of a plaque outside the synagogue in 2021 that begins with a quote from Mishnah Yoma 8:9 about the necessity of reconciliation between peoples. Drawn from the ritual framework of Yom Kippur that is centered around atonement, the reference defines ethical harmony as rooted in the restoration of relationships born through a process of acknowledging our errors in the hope that forgiveness ensues from those we have wronged.

So too with our verses in Leviticus. Like the community of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, we need to name the injustices and moral shortcomings of biblical passages that made way for the institution of slavery to continue long after the Exodus. Remembering the Exodus should not only be linked to the idea of freedom, but also to the memory of our own misdeeds. To be ethical readers of the Torah entails a critical recognition of the unsettling texts within it in the hope that we can then acknowledge our own imperfections. Reflective engagement with our biblical texts makes us better human beings. It allows us to see our own moral shortcomings so that we can live in productive relationships with those we may have harmed.

Shabbat Shalom

[1]

[2]Barry Stiefel, “David Lopez Jr.: Builder, Industrialist, and Defender of the Confederacy,” American Jewish Archives Journal, 2012.

. . . I will establish My abode in your midst, and I will not spurn you. I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people. (Lev. 26: 11–12)

We receive Divine assurance of a close and loving relationship with God, one that has important implications for material wealth and success: if the Israelites follow the Torah, they will be blessed with the warm and affectionate presence of the God of Israel. But the tone shifts ominously almost immediately:

But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you . . .(14–16)

If the Israelites do not keep the mitzvot, there will be devastating consequences: misery and pain, consumption and fever, failed crops and stolen harvests, humiliating defeats and brutal beasts, plague and famine. Scholars have long noted that this section (14–39) of curses (ḳe�������dz�) and rebuke (�ٴǰ��ḥa��) is nearly three times as long as the section of blessings (3–13) that proceeds it. The consolation at the end is also short: The survivors of this catastrophe, now in exile in the land of their foes, will experience a change of heart, and laying aside their old habit of transgression, will honestly confess their sin and find favor with God. The Torah promises them:

Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or spurn them, or destroy them, or annul My covenant with them.

For the sake of the “covenant with the first-ones” (the earliest Fathers and Mothers of the people) the Israelites will find themselves back in their Creator’s powerful loving embrace.

Why do we continue to read such horrible curses, and another passage much like it in Parashat Ki Tavo (Deut. 28:1–68), each year? The simplest answer is that we read the entirety of the Torah each year, omitting nothing. However, the Mishnah (Megillah 3:6) already notes something special about the curses of the Leviticus passage: “The section of curses must not be broken up but must all be read by one person.”

One of the comments we find in the Talmud explaining this practice tries to balance this need for completeness with the need for some relief:

“Rabbi Shimon son of Lakish said: [We read it in a single go] so that the blessing [typically recited at the beginning of the reading] isn’t said over punishment.” What should a person do? It was taught: “One should start reading in the passage before the section [of curses] and conclude in the passage after it.”

(B. Megillah 31b)

Rabbi Shimon son of Lakish (Resh Lakish) asserts that we should read the curses bracketed by two adjacent sections of blessing in a single reading so that the person who makes the blessing “noten hatorah” can be said to have done so over passages that describe blessings rather than curses.

But this is not the only way that we bracket these two lengthy passages of curses. We may have no choice but to read them, but we can control when we read them in the course of the year. Later in the same Talmudic passage we read:

It has been taught: “Rabbi Simeon b. Eleazar says: Ezra made a regulation for Israel that they should read the curses in Leviticus before Shavuot and those in Deuteronomy before Rosh Ha-Shanah.” What is the reason?  Abaye—or some say it was Resh Lakish—said: “So that when the year ends, so will its curses.”

In other words, we read these curses just before the year’s seasonal turn so that—in a sort of merciful act—the curses are only in effect until the conclusion of the ritual resetting of the year. The declaration of curses is an annual warning. Twice a year we are read the “riot act” and cautioned to be on our best behavior. But the punishment could only befall us until the end of the holiday period that concludes that portion of the year. For the fall harvest this would be the day after Shemini Atzeret (the convocation for Sukkot—the day after is the 22nd of Tishrei). And the Talmud continues:

Shavuot is also a New Year, as we have learnt in a Mishnah (Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:2): “Shavuot is the new year for fruit from trees.”

Thus, for the summer the period would end the week after Shavuot (a week, not a day, since we count seven weeks leading up to the festival) on the 15th of Sivan (this year, Friday June 21st). The Torah reading is structured in such a way that each period of danger lasts about a month. As Maimonides writes in the Mishneh Torah (Tefillah 13:2):

Ezra instituted the practice of having the Jews read the curses found in the book of Leviticus before Shavuot, and those found in the book of Deuteronomy before Rosh Hashanah. It is a common custom to read Bemidbarbefore Shavuot [and] . . .  Nitzavim before Rosh Hashanah . . .

In other words, there is one parashah each that separates the curses in Behukkotai and Ki Tavo by one week from Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah respectively: Bemidbar,the parashah after Behukkotai, is always read before Shavuot. Nitzavim, the parashah after Ki Tavo, is always read before Rosh Hashanah. Why do we extend the period by a week each year? According to Mordecai ben Avraham Yoffe (c. 1530–1612) in his halakhic work Levush Malkhut, this limits the time (or perhaps the immediacy of the claim) that the demonic prosecutor has to bring Israel’s sins to God’s attention:

 . . . and we also pause a week, so that the curses are not read immediately before Shavuot, since this [festival] is the day of judgment for the trees. And we do not want to give a claim to the Satan that he could use for [their] prosecution, heaven forbid!

It is important to note that Yoffe sees two different types of danger here: in the fall the danger is from enemies, disease, or violent calamity; in the summer the danger is to agriculture, the environment, and economic conditions. In other words, there are two kinds of threats. One sort of threat is to our person, our bodies, and our physical well-being. The other is to our world, our livelihood, and the well-being of our property. Which is the greater threat? The more immediate threat to our lives is violence and calamity. But ultimately, the greater threat is the environmental one. We will all die, eventually, but we hope the world will be a place that our descendants can live on in abundance after us. If we cannot give them a safe place to live, how is any sort of future possible?

May the Ribono shel olam grant us the strength to face both sorts of challenges and may we and those we love pass through all periods of danger well, unharmed, and full of blessings and abundance! 

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

Now I should not have needed to review the parashah to come up with this question because in May 1997, Behar was my bat mitzvah portion. And yet every year when these parashiyot come around, together or separately, I feel a bit of shame. I do not remember chanting the words or studying them. I do not remember if they spoke to me or what I said about them from the bimah.

What I do remember is Cantor Brindell, of blessed memory, who went into the hospital in the hours after my service and died on Shabbat morning the following week, teaching me the trope for the haftarah. I remember its opening words, “וַיֹּ֖אמֶר יִרְמְיָ֑הוּ הָיָ֥ה דְבַר־יְהֹוָ֖ה אֵלַ֥י לֵאמֹֽר, And Jeremiah said that the word of God came to him saying . . . ” (Jer. 32:6). I remember being so proud to lead a service in front of my family, friends, and all the other middle schoolers I invited to the service. I remember relatives coming in from near and far, and I remember my mom on the bimah speaking to me in her official role as synagogue president.

And so I find myself 26 years later, 9 years into my rabbinate, going back to the words that I must have studied with the rabbi, trying to figure out what messages I forgot, or missed, all those years ago.

Reading through it, I can see why the portion didn’t quite speak to me.  Slavery and the creation of a slightly more moral system than the norm in the ancient world are major themes. I suspect my pre-teen self said, “I guess Torah is sort of outdated” and moved on. Rereading it today, I can easily notice relevant concepts such as shemittah, giving the land a Shabbat-like rest, and the jubilee year when we return land to folks who have become disenfranchised and prevent systemic inequality. These concepts are relevant to me today because observing Shabbat has given shape to my week, the year I spent observing ^[1] shaped my relationship with the origins of my food, and learning about systemic injustice has shown how radical the return of land could be. I do not blame the educators, because while I did not receive the message that my Torah portion was filled with relevant wisdom, I received a more important message loud and clear: Judaism, its people, culture, and rituals, are deeply meaningful and relevant. The friendships, the cycle of holidays, the marking of time, I never once questioned that my life had more joy and meaning because I was part of the Jewish people.

Today I meet many young people who have not been taught Judaism’s relevance to their lives.  They have not had the chance to live the Jewish calendar, to build strong Jewish friendships, to feel pride in belonging to something that sets them apart from others and knowing what beliefs or behaviors set them apart.

In my work as a community rabbi, first at Hillel and now leading a Jewish community organization for 20s and 30s in the Philadelphia area, I have taken on the mandate to convey this message: that Judaism is relevant, exciting, and meaningful—not just as an identity that they can name but as a way of life that shapes the choices they make and how they spend their time. Teaching the words of the Torah in one-off and ongoing classes is one way we do this. We also model the values of shemittah and jubilee, such as giving time for self-care, running programs on environmentalism, and pushing for economic justice.  We try to make the Jewish calendar accessible and fun through holiday celebrations. And we hope that if one of the young people we serve is in trouble, they will turn to each other, as our parashah models: “If one of your kin is in straits and has to sell part of a holding, the nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what that relative has sold” (Lev. 25:25).

In my 20s I led a lot of Birthright trips and each trip would have 5–10 folks who decided to have an adult b’nei mitzvah ceremony on the trip. I would often say, too many people see the b’nei mitzvah as the end of Jewish education, and as the pinnacle of Jewish living. 12 or 13 is too young for that, and so are 18 or 22 or 25. There is no age which should serve as the culmination of our Jewish education. If we are lucky we will have the chance to go back to each parashah and holiday for decades, noticing new things about the texts and rituals, and about ourselves and our communities each year.

This is one of the biggest blessings of our calendar, the chance to go back year after year to the same texts and rituals and continuously analyze, critique, and celebrate these gifts of the Jewish inheritance. In this week’s second parashah, Behukkotai, the Torah shares some of the blessings and challenges of our covenant with God and states “I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people” (Lev. 26:12). What a gift to have our entire lives to connect with God’s presence in new ways, through text, community, and practice, in our ever-renewing commitment to God’s everlasting covenant.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

^[1] To learn more, see this blog post written by Rabbi Ariella Rosen (RS’15) for a 91�첥 class assignment.

This accumulation of divine admonitions in relation to the collective experience of the past years led me to philosopher Walter Benjamin’s Angelus Novus. In a posthumously published essay, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Benjamin describes a print he had purchased in 1921, which features a striking image of a wide-eyed and wings-outstretched angel.

His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back his turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.

In Behukkotai, both blessings and curses seem to pile up, overwhelming the recipient either with abundance or challenging circumstances. It is easier to see the parallels between Benajmin’s storm and the increasing curses of the tokhekah: sickness, famine, exile, and death seem to pile up on the Israelites. In thinking through these blessings and curses and Benjamin’s pessimism about progress, is there room for optimism?

The parashah opens with descriptions of abundance for the Israelites if they “follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments” (Lev. 26:3). The blessings end with a reminder of God’s redemptive role in the Exodus. “I the Lord am your God who brought you out from the land of the Egyptians to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect” (Lev. 26:13). We can picture the Israelites being propelled forward into freedom but accompanied by mountains of wreckage that trail behind them—generational trauma, environmental and physical plagues, and death. The blessing portion of the parashah evokes the adage too much of a good thing, potentially leading those with plenty to miss the metaphorical debris surrounding them.  There is a flipside to blessings, one that calls on the recipient to acknowledge their position of privilege.

And with curses, the opposite can hold true as well. Challenges, obstacles, and impediments can create new awareness and provide a measure of compassion that allows individuals to step outside of their experience. The angel in Benjamin’s image is highly aware of what is going on around him, which seems to be a reaction to his constant propulsion. One curse in the parashah also refers to this distinct sense of situational awareness:

As for those of you who survive, I will cast a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight. Fleeing as though from the sword, they shall fall though none pursues.

(Lev. 26:36)

In comparison to the initial blessings of carefree living, this ongoing anxiety and movement seem overly burdensome.  The survivors are like Angelus Novus with wings spread, being pushed forward. This progress is terrifying, but it also forces the individual to be acutely aware of his or her surroundings. Strangely, Benjamin’s angel has been tracking me for the past half year, appearing in two books[1] and at the center of an exhibit that I encountered. In both books, a novel and a work of social commentary, Benjamin provides a counterpoint to an unconsidered life, with the authors illustrating the dangers of unchecked development through the trajectory of the angel.

In the tokhehah, God’s wrath comes from the rejection of commandments—commandments that include the exhortation to care for those in need, “the widow, the orphan and the stranger.” Curses emerge from unappreciated prosperity, failing to live up to the moral code at the center of God’s laws and commandments. Blessing can also arise from curses. Anxiety and challenge can heighten mindful appreciation of the plight of others and our broader world. We can be responsive instead of apathetic. Yes, we are deeply enmeshed in a difficult time in a challenging world. This offers us a chance to see the wreckage and evaluate what we can do differently. Even within the “curses” of the COVID era, there have been opportunities for “blessing”—for us to take stock and better appreciate the simple joy of being with friends, to explore and enjoy nature, to consider what really matters to us. It would be easy to be mired in the debris that is trailing behind us, but like Benjamin’s angel we can be intentional, facing forward, looking to what comes next.

In moments of trauma, we can develop an awareness of our challenges and shortcomings and develop a powerful sense of empathy. Behukkotai implies that there are reasons for national calamity, rooted in complacency during times of prosperity and ignoring inequity and injustice. There is a sense of the power of human agency to behave differently, and the moral responsibility to do so. And for people to find ways to do this together would truly be a blessing.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

[1] The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

The Torah is such a fundamental part of us as a people that it’s easy to forget how implausible it may seem that any document written 2,500 years ago would be relevant to modern life. Core assumptions since then have been overturned—about gender, power, nature, and society (to say the least!). Why would we think the Torah has anything to say to us? Why do we feel the draw of God’s covenant as instantiated in this outmoded text?

Indeed, the Torah itself constantly reminds us that it was not intended for us Diasporic Jews. Again and again, the language of the Torah ties itself to settlement in the Land of Israel. To give two examples from this week’s Torah portion: “if you observe My laws . . . you shall rest on the land in security” (Lev. 25:18); “I am God your Lord who brought you out of Egypt to give to you the land of Canaan in order to be your Lord” (Lev. 25:38). Is the Torah even relevant beyond the specific borders of the Land of Israel?

The Mishnah (Kiddushin 1:7) takes a strong stand on the issue, by distinguishing between “mitzvot dependent on the Land” (e.g. Shemittah, the once-in-seven-years agricultural rest; certain priestly gifts) and “mitzvot not dependent on the Land (e.g. Shabbat, tefillin).

The Talmud (BT Kiddushin 37a–b) tries to find some Scriptural criteria that puts any particular mitzvah into one category or the other, and in so doing undermines the very distinction it is trying to demonstrate. For example, the Talmud uses Deuteronomy 12:1 as the basis for the Mishnah’s division: “These are the laws and rules that you must carefully observe in the land (eretz) that God, the Lord of your fathers, is giving you to possess, as long as you live on earth (adamah).” In the end, the Midrash there concludes that “as long as you live on earth” means that many mitzvot apply in all lands, not just the Land of Israel. But by bringing this verse, the Talmud reinforces the potential alienation: after all, the Hebrew terms eretz and adamah are often synonymous and so it’s all too easy to read the passage as saying that the laws must be observed “in the land . . . as long as you live on the land”—clearly implying the necessity of being in the Land of Israel.

In other words, the reader realizes, through the Talmud’s counterproofs, that so much of the core of Judaism is made, in the Torah, dependent on the Land of Israel! As later Judaism’s most famous heretic, Baruch Spinoza, concluded when he tried to read the Torah anew with as few prior dogmatic assumptions as possible, “the Law revealed by God to Moses was simply the laws of the Hebrew state alone, and was therefore binding on none but the Hebrews, and not even on them except while their state still stood” (Theologico-Political Treatise, Preface).

Another example of the implausibility of the Torah: God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would be “like the stars of heaven” (Gen. 22:17). It is true that there are roughly 14 million Jews in the world, which sounds like a lot when you think about Abraham and his family. But compared to the 7 billion people in the world, it is extremely hard to square God’s promise for keeping the covenant with the demographic reality. Our Temples were destroyed, our people scattered and murdered throughout time—we are hardly “a great nation, mighty and numerous” (Deut. 26:5).

Which just brings us back to the original question: Why do we still look to words that may have no relevance to us for meaning? Why do we still cling to God’s covenant despite all the evidence that suggests it is null and void?

One answer might be that we are simply stubborn. To act as if the covenant still remains true, that the laws are still incumbent on us even beyond the borders of ancient Israel, that the Torah simply has anything to say to us at all—these are extraordinary acts of stubbornness and even hubris, defying all reason and evidence. Simply put, it is pretending that the world has never changed. This stubbornness I find strangely comforting. As Jews, we are anchored to the past like few others, and in some ways this has allowed the Torah to be ever-relevant for us.

Perhaps another way to think about it is through the nature of a covenant as a relationship between two parties, us and God. In this way, our turning to the Torah is a way of never giving up on this relationship. Even when God’s promises seem strained, even when God’s law seems not to speak to us, we are unwilling to give up on our divine partner. It’s a relationship that we know in our hearts, despite Scriptural prooftexts to the contrary, transcends borders in time and space and keeps us strong through the worst hardships.

Or perhaps our stubbornness reveals a deeper truth, that in some fundamental way, the world has never changed. The experience of being human and the exploration of answers to those questions that humans ask are still the same. Our lives have the same ingredients—relationships, births and deaths. Despite the drastic differences between the world of the Torah and ours, they are so overwhelmed by the continuities that the ancient wisdom naturally speaks to us.

I prefer to live in the absurdity. I know full well that my biblical ancestors would find my form of Judaism incomprehensible, that I cling to texts that speak directly to them and not me. For me, this is our triumph as a people, to continually reclaim our tradition and our covenant and to demand that it applies to us now, that it speaks to us directly, that it encircles and enriches our lives, that it contains the very word of God. This is not a conviction based on rationality; it is rather a “leap of faith.” It is a reflection of our stubborn disposition—and yet it is at the core of everything that is beautiful and powerful in our tradition.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

“The Land” is a central character in Leviticus, receiving 23 mentions in the final two chapters, and 70 altogether in the second half of this central book of Torah. We think often of Leviticus as centered on the Sanctuary, and that it is, but the Land itself is a living character, offering blessings and curses to the people of Israel. If the people live faithfully, then the Land will receive blessed rains, produce its bounty, and provide security and satiety. But if the people act as if their title to the Land is absolute, if they fail to allow the Land to rest on the sabbatical year and recognize God’s ultimate title, then they will be forced into exile.

As Jacob Milgrom notes, the previous priestly account of pollution of the Land—the flood narrative of Genesis 6—requires ablution, the washing away of sin with water. (Milgrom, Leviticus 23-27, 2336)That solution is unavailable now for two reasons. First, God promised never to flood the earth again. Second, the sin that occupies Leviticus is not really one of pollution but of over-extraction of natural resources. The people have ignored God’s command to observe the sabbatical year; the only resolution is for the people to be pushed off the land so that it can rest and recover. Hence, the dreaded punishment of exile.

Toward the end of the devastating reproach section of our portion, the Torah predicts a future reconciliation when the exiles will humble their hearts, and their sin will be atoned. “Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the Land” (Lev. 26:42). This verse has several unusual features. It reverses the order of the patriarchs; it records Jacob’s name “full” with an extra letter (יעקוב, rather the Bible’s usual יעקב); and it leaves out “remember” for the middle man, Isaac.

Each element is interesting, but let us focus on the finale of the verse, where the Land itself becomes something like a fourth patriarch. God announces, “I will remember the Land,” making it not only the destination of return but also the very foundation of the covenant. As Midrash Sifra observes, “the Covenant is linked to the Land” (Behukkotai 2:8). Thinking back to Genesis 17, we recall that the covenant that God establishes with Abraham is all about the Land: “Then I will give to you and your descendants after you the land where you have dwelt, the Land of Canaan as an eternal possession, and I will be your God” (Gen. 17:8). The Land is not only a place to live, but an intermediary through which to encounter God.

Elsewhere in the Bible, the Land of Israel stands as a symbol of the virtue or lack of virtue of Israel. In a time of physical exile, Jeremiah imagines the Land itself lamenting its abandonment and asking why. Let the wise come and explain, “Why is the Land in ruins, laid waste like a wilderness, with none passing through it?” (Jer. 9:11). A land that is abandoned, in ruins, is evocative of the absent human life that once flourished there. Isaiah depicts the Land pining for its people and rejoicing upon their return (Isa. 49).

The Rabbis imagine the Land of Israel to be something like a tough nanny. On the one hand, she is a disciplinarian, noticing the failure of the people to observe her commandments such as the neglected sabbatical, and calling these failures to God’s attention. On the other hand, she is their caregiver. In Midrash Vayikra Rabbah, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says that it is like a king who has three sons and a nurse for them. If he wants to know about his sons, he inquires about the nurse. So too does God care about the children—that is, Israel—but inquires only about the Land (Behukkotai 36).

This Midrash views the Land as an instrument of reward and punishment, but perhaps the truth is deeper still. The Land is more like a teacher or a parent, socializing its students to express gratitude, self-control, and respect for others. Like an anxious child who grabs more food than they really need, the people of Israel are inclined to ignore the Sabbatical. This undermines awareness of divine title and cedes self-control, so that fear guides their way, all the way into exile.

German-Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas argued that pre-modern ethics was limited to a range of proximate concern—it was always assumed that earth would rebound from any damage that we could cause. Therefore, responsibility was only for direct damage, not for the cumulative harm caused over the course of generations. (The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, 5) That indeed seems to be the understanding in Leviticus: After a few years of exile, the neglected sabbaticals will be made up, and the people will be welcome to return. Our fear is that this is no longer true. Our destructive powers have grown too great, and the land may not recover from the harm that we cause.

Enjoyment of the land requires us to tread lightly on it. A walk in the park, a hike in the hills, a dip in the ocean—these simple pleasures restore our relationship to the land, reminding us that we are not its owners, but rather its temporary inhabitants. More than this is required—real reductions in carbon emissions and the willingness to let the land rest. As with the ancient neglect of sabbaticals, our contemporary abuse of our home is having direct and dangerous consequences. Reading this portion alerts us to that danger and motivates us to make the changes required to live in health and joy on all the good land that God has given.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

Our second portion, Behukkotai, opens with the prediction that if we follow God’s laws, then God will “grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit” (Lev. 26:4). If we do not obey God and do not observe God’s commandments, then “I will make your skies like iron and your earth like copper, so that your strength shall be spent to no purpose. Your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit” (Lev. 26:19–20).

Rabbinic literature has preserved numerous legends that correlate rainfall to virtue, none of them more famous or entertaining than the legends of Honi the circle drawer (Mishnah Ta’anit 3:8; JT Ta’anit 66d; BT Ta’anit 22b-23; Megillat Ta’anit Scholion, etc.). During a severe drought, the people ask him to pray for rain, and he does, initially without results. Then, when he persists, God delivers a measly drizzle; he persists further, and a deluge follows. Finally, Honi stands in a circle and demands that God send rains for a blessing. It works, but he is chastised by a rabbinic colleague for his insolence. Never mind, Honi is a favorite of God, and of Jewish children everywhere.

Even within the premises of this climate theology something has always struck me as odd. Rainfall affects entire regions. Why should Israel’s neighbors be blessed or cursed along with Israel? The prophet Amos addressed this with a prediction that rain could fall on one village, or even one section of it, and not the other, in order to indicate divine pleasure or censure (Amos 4:7). The Rabbis offered a more expansive theory—the conduct of Israel determines the climate of all. The appendix (or scholion) to Megillat Ta’anit connects the legend of Honi to the blessing of Abraham: All families of earth will be blessed through you (Gen. 12:3). In other words, the actions of the few can affect the many. If Abraham and his descendants act righteously, then the entire world will prosper, but if they are evil, then there will be no limit to our woes. Could this be true?

We are living in a time of rapid climate change; the scientific consensus is that humans are causing much of the change, affecting not only ourselves, but the entire biosphere. Plants and animals, bacteria and viruses, and even the physical contours of the land and sea are all changing because of our conduct. Not every change is bad, of course. Longer growing seasons farther from the equator may allow farmers to grow more food. But most of the changes will be devastating, with rising seas imperiling billions of people living at lower elevations, and many other related horrors. The discrete actions of individuals when combined can cause consequences for all organisms that live on earth.

When I was younger, I was sympathetic to the liberal critique of the second paragraph of the Shema (Deut. 11:13–21). That paragraph integrates the same theology of meteorology into our liturgy—if you behave, then the rains will arrive in their due season, but if not, then watch out—the skies will become your enemy, the earth will become barren and you will perish swiftly from the good land that the Lord has given to you. This struck me as mythological and simplistic—as if global weather systems could be explained by the moral conduct of the people of Israel. I understood why the Reform movement deleted this paragraph, though having left Reform Judaism before my bar mitzvah and entered a series of Conservative camps and Orthodox yeshivot, I continued to say these words from a sense of duty.

As I grow older and more aware of the complex climate systems of our planet, I have come to feel that these sentences of the Shema are more important than anything else found in the prayer. We ought to guard our conduct carefully, acting with virtue and avoiding vice, or else the consequences will be severe. “Virtue” and “vice” today have everything to do with the climate. People who act with wanton disregard, wasting resources, polluting air, land and sea, are guilty of ruining the world for everyone. I realize that there are religious people who believe that God will always clean up our messes, but this strikes me as the height of ingratitude. People who act responsibly, reducing, recycling, and reusing their resources, are the truly religious, respecting the magnificent gift of life on earth.

The book of Job includes a taunt from God, “Do you know the laws of heaven?” (Job 38:33). The word for “laws” (hukot) is the same word as in our parashah’s title, Behukkotai. Job wonders if humanity can ever understand God’s laws of nature, but Leviticus demands that we at least act as if we do. This explains the true virtue index of climate change—if we act in partnership with God, then the natural resources of our world will continue to flourish, and we will be blessed upon the good land that is our only home.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).