Shabbos Tzetl: Behar

0 views
Skip to first unread message

Emmanuels

unread,
May 23, 2024, 8:02:12 PMMay 23
to e2
4:55pm - Candle Lighting, Friday
5:55pm - Havdalah, Saturday
(Melbourne Australia)
Eruv Status: KOSHER cosv.org.au/eruv/
Good Shabbos!


Please click here to view the Yeshivah Shule Tzetel for Shabbos Parshas Behar. Please click here to view the PDFs of Weekly Publications.   



PARSHAH IN A NUTSHELL
Leviticus 25:1–26:2
The name of the Parshah, “Behar,” means “on Mount [Sinai]” and it is found in Leviticus 25:1.

On the mountain of Sinai, G‑d communicates to Moses the laws of the Sabbatical year: every seventh year, all work on the land should cease, and its produce becomes free for the taking for all, man and beast.

Seven Sabbatical cycles are followed by a fiftieth year—the Jubilee year, on which work on the land ceases, all indentured servants are set free, and all ancestral estates in the Holy Land that have been sold revert to their original owners.

Behar also contains additional laws governing the sale of lands, and the prohibitions against fraud and usury.


HAFTORAH IN A NUTSHELL
Jeremiah 32:6-22.

This week's haftorah discusses the purchase of a field by Jeremiah, echoing one of the themes of this week's Torah portion—the purchase and redemption of real estate.

Jeremiah was confined in King Zedekiah's royal compound for having prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people. There, G‑d revealed Himself to the prophet and informs him that he will be approached by his cousin Hanamel with an offer to purchase his ancestral lands. G‑d instructs Jeremiah to accept this offer.

Indeed, Hanamel arrived in the compound with the offer, and Jeremiah accepted. Money was transferred and a document of purchase was penned in the presence of witnesses. The prophet then gavs the deed to his disciple Baruch son of Neriah for safekeeping, and instructed him to store it in an earthenware vessel where it will remain for many years.

Jeremiah then conveys G‑d's message, the symbolism inherent in this transaction: "So says the L-rd of Hosts, the G‑d of Israel: 'Houses and fields and vineyards shall be purchased again in this land.'" Thus conveying a message of hope even on the eve of destruction and exile. Yes the Jews would be exiled, but they would also eventually be returned to their land.

The haftorah ends with the prophet's prayer to and exaltation of G‑d.


SAGES ON THE PARSHAH

When you come into the land which I give you, the land shall rest a sabbath unto G‑d (25:2)

Taken on its own, this verse seems to imply that “a sabbath unto G‑d” is to be observed immediately upon entering the Land. But in practice, when the Jewish people entered the Land of Israel they first worked the land for six years, and only then observed the seventh year as the Shemittah (sabbatical year)—as, indeed, the Torah clearly instructs in the following verses.

The Torah is telling us that a Shemittah is to both precede and follow our six years of labor: to follow it on the calendar, but to also precede it—if not in actuality, then conceptually.

We find a similar duality in regard to the weekly seven-day cycle. The weekly Shabbat has a twofold role: a) It is the day “from which all successive days are blessed”—the source of material and spiritual sustenance for the week to follow. b) It is the “culmination” of the week—the day on which the week’s labors and efforts are harvested and sublimated, and their inner spiritual significance is realized and brought to light.

But if every week must have a Shabbat to “bless” it, what about the week of creation itself? In actuality, G‑d began His creation of existence—including the creation of time—on Sunday, which is therefore called the “First Day.” But our sages tell us that there was a primordial Shabbat which preceded creation—a Shabbat existing not in time but in the mind of G‑d, as a vision of a completed and perfected world.

Therein lies an important lesson in how we are to approach the mundane involvements of life. True, we begin with the material, for in a world governed by cause and effect, the means inevitably precede the end. But what is first in actuality need not be first in mind. In mind and consciousness, the end must precede the means, for without a clear vision of their purpose to guide them, the means may begin to see themselves as the end.

The spiritual harvest of a Shabbat or Shemittah can be achieved only after a “work-week” of dealing with the material world and developing its resources. But it must be preceded and predicated upon “a sabbath unto G‑d” that occupies the fore of our consciousness and pervades our every deed.

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

https://w2.chabad.org/media/pdf/16808.pdf




Submission to Emmanuel's? See here
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages