by Rick Gwynallen
In the early 1980s I saw a film entitled Koyaanisqatsi. In the Hopi language, Koyaanisqatsi means “Unbalanced life.” This film, which lacked any dialogue or vocal narration, examined human impact upon the environment and the resulting, accumulated damage. Koyaanisqatsi was a poignant and moving depiction of the desperate state of imbalances resulting from private ownership, the profit drive, and the accompanying human attitudes toward nature.
In Parashat Behar we find the introduction to a system of land redistribution aimed at addressing accumulated inequalities. Of all the topics in Torah classes I’ve been in over the years few draw forth such political disagreement as Shemittah and Yovel. Perhaps it’s because this is such specific social legislation, and because the topic being addressed remains so relevant today.
Despite the changes of the past decades aimed at ameliorating a range of inequalities in modern capitalism and consumer society, the chasm of wealth has grown wider. Though our modern society might be greener and even fairer in some categories than a few decades ago economic inequality overall has not diminished.
The fundamental critique of capitalism or market economies has been that it is superior to feudalism and other systems preceding it at increasing the productive capacity of a society and generating wealth, but very bad at distributing that wealth equitably.
Social or political power is a reflection of economic power. Thus, economic inequality results in inequality of power, leaving the poor and less powerful struggling uphill.
Every time we repeat the Amidah as a community we emphasize that we must be kadosh as G-d is kadosh. What does it mean to be kadosh? We are told in Psalm 146:
He secures justice for the oppressed. He gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets captives free. The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord raises those bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord protects the stranger. He gives courage to the orphan and widow.
The prophets cry out against the treatment of the poor constantly. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offers some of those examples in his own comments on Behar.
“Amos speaks of those who “sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; who trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground, and deny justice to the oppressed“(Amos 2:6-7).
“Isaiah cries, “Woe to those who make unjust laws and issue oppressive decrees … making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless” (Is. 10:1-2).”
“Micah inveighs against people who “covet fields and seize them, houses and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance” (Micah 2:1-2).”
What we find in Behar is a sense that the Torah addresses this problem in a multi-facted way.
As we say that the mitzvot exist to serve the people and the people do not exist to serve the mitzvot, so we might say that our social formation exists to serve the people and the people do not exist to serve the social formation.
In Behar we find two cycles of redistribution, Shemittah and Yovel, the seventh and fiftieth year. Through a combination of debt remission, liberation of slaves, and the return of ancestral land to its original owners this system attempts to eliminate inequalities that build up over time in a market economy, and re-level the playing field.
Much like Torah offers improvements to the social conditions of the time, such as more humane treatment of slaves and a prohibition on human sacrifice but not on animal sacrifice, but does not assume that the existing social conditions can be immediately eliminated, so Shemittah and Yovel attempt to address the inevitable accumulation of economic inequalities that remain beyond the system of their time to eliminate.
Simultaneously, Behar asserts a much larger ideological frame for addressing inequality.
The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine: you are strangers and sojourners with me. (v. 23)
If your brother becomes poor and sells himself to you, you shall not work him as a slave …For they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. (vv. 39-43)
It should be noted that this is only for Jews in the position of an indentured servant, and does not apply to non-Jewish slaves. Still, both of these statements have to do with property as slaves were property. It does not address personal possessions, such as furniture or clothing, but productive property, property that generates wealth.
In essence, the Torah asserts there is no such thing as absolute private ownership. There were other ancient societies that did not have private property as we think of it today and land was held in common, but the Torah asserts that the land belongs ultimately to God. Further, since we all belong to God, none can permanently be owned by another.
In Behar we find the underlying principle of Jewish law that G-d created the universe and thus owns the creation, and that only G-d owns anything at all. In Behar this principle is translated into social policy regarding land ownership and slavery. What we have is in trust from G-d. We have use rights. And there is a condition upon which those rights are granted, that being that we take care of each other
This principle is what makes the concept of tzedakah understandable. At the High Holidays we entone teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah. So critical is tzedakah that it is one of the three acts to avert a decree against us, to set things to right. Yet, the common English translation of “charity” fails to capture the concept implied by the root of tzedakah , which implies justice or righteousness.
In English, the payment of a debt from one to another is an act of justice. We must give the money. Charity implies that we may give. Charity is unobligated and may be given when and under what conditions we wish. After all, the money we are giving is unquestionably our property.
In Judaism, however, what we possess is not only our property. Ultimately, it belongs to God. The use rights we are granted to possess something in trust are based on a condition. If another has a need and we possess more than what we need we must give. The money does not have to be legally owed for the giving to be obligatory. That is tzedakah.
This analysis is not so new or unique. It just took time for me to understand it. However, three points stand out for me.
First, many others will define tzedakah as I have done, and use a similar example, that being that if another has a need and we possess more than what we need we must give. However, what one needs is left vague. One might have a friend close to eviction while you yourself might be saving considerable money every month, which you one day may want to invest in a new house or something else. To do so you live on a tight budget with the funds you leave for yourself after savings. You have no money left within that budget to give your friend. Do you have more than you need or do you not?
I would offer that in such a case you have the ability to help your friend salvage their situation by not saving as much as you would have. The question then is are your resources sufficient to help without impoverishing yourself?
Second, I sometimes come across the idea that a wealthy person realizes their duty is to share their good fortune because God had given them success. This I find problematic. If we presume that G-d gives some people success and others not, a door is left open to justifying social classes and economic inequality as long as the wealthy share what they have. Even with giving obligated as with the concept of tzedakah instead of charity this has an upper class paternalistic quality to it.
In a commentary on Ki Tavo, Rabbi Dov Linzer wrote: “As outsiders, minors, or women, they have not inherited land; they do not figure as primary actors in the nation’s history; and they are not seen by society as having the same rights of belonging as others. It is the mandate of the landowner to protect and support them, but they remain at a distinctly lower social stratum.”
He wrote further about a line in Nitzavim:
“You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God … all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, and the stranger within your camp … to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God” (29:9-11).
At first glance, this line seems to underscore what we read in Ki Tavo, that social differences exist. However, Rabbi Linzer takes the interpretation one step further to say that while G-d acknowledges the existence of the differences, G-d is also saying that:
” . . . while society may place you at different levels, today you all stand on equal footing to enter into the covenant with God.”
Rabbi Linzer offers the interpretation that one could read this as a critique of social stratification: ” . . . a mandate to not only protect the ger, the widow, and the orphan, but ultimately, to remove the social inequities that place them at the margins. “
Years ago I read a piece by Rabbi Dov Linzer that changed the way I thought of Torah. It was a piece on slavery within Torah and basically asserted that not every mitzvah is intended as an ideal. Some are showing us a way forward.
In this light, we might see the reforms of Shemittah and Yovel as ameliorating injustices inherent in the market system as similar to two seemingly contradictory statements Parashat Re’eh; one that states there will be no more poor among you (15:4-5), and one that states since there will always be poor among you here is how you should treat them (15:11). My understanding of these passages has been that if we build a society adhering to G-d’s laws we will create an environment in which there are no poor. But, since we are not likely to achieve that level of development any time soon, here is how the we must act toward the poor.
Similarly, while we are unable to create a society where economic inequalities do not accumulate here is Shemittah and Yovel to rectify these problems. Further, they exist to remind us that we are not the ultimate owners of any of it.
The Ari taught that G-d provided us an imperfect world that was “a good, a very good world” because we were empowered to make it good. If in fact Torah is intended for us to grow as people and as a society to the point where we are capable of achieving the fair and equal society to which Torah guides, and thus be partners with G-d, it may behoove us to measure our lives by how much we enhance the lives of others, even beyond our families, rather than how much we gain. We may then be able to count our days as valuable.
Stumbling Toward Torah 