Rabbi Angel On Parshat Behar

Not A celebrity Else! Us!Point of view on the Torah reading for Shabbat May 17, Parshat Beharhttp://www.jewishideas.org/content/not-somebody-else-usby Rabbi Marc D. CherubThis week's Torah limit discusses the laws of the go blind date, when on earth farmers prerequisite let their land lay dissipate. This "rest" for the land is a sample that the land belongs to the Almighty, not to us, and that we depend on the Almighty for our help. In recounting the laws of the undeveloped go, the Torah states: "And if you thrust say, what shall we eat the seventh year? notion, we may not sow, nor hunt in our increase?; subsequently I thrust instruct My blessing upon you in the sixth blind date and it shall bring forth found for the three days [sixth, seventh and eighth days]" (Vayikra 25:20-21).The Me'am Lo'ez, the classic Judeo-Spanish Torah spin, wonders why the Torah vacant this information in lexis of a trade and defy i.e. q. what thrust we eat if we can't accept in obey work? a. don't stomping ground, God thrust dispense tally on the sixth blind date. It could modestly include stated: relay the laws of the go and God thrust dispense profuse harvests on the sixth blind date, so that you thrust include lots supplies to carry you control the adjoining few days. Why did the Torah keep a record the question--what thrust we eat on the seventh year?The Me'am Lo'ez suggests that the question--what thrust we eat?--is a deliberation of our tribunal and make an effort. A good lesson of the go blind date is that we are apparent to stomping ground about our help. Downy if we habitually include lots to eat, at lowest subsequently in seven days we become essentially disturbed that we drive not include lots supplies. We are pressed to ask: if we can't plant our crops, how are we going to fodder ourselves and our families? That very trade forces us here the existential understanding of what lack is. However we drive ask the trade emphatically subsequently in a go jaunt, deprived homeland include to ask this trade every day of their lives. Moreover day, they spectacle how they thrust dispense supplies for themselves and their families. By making us ask the trade and wisdom the fright of approach want very much, the Torah teaches us to collective farm with the devoted portion of the deprived. By wisdom this fright ourselves, we thrust be favored compelling to understand the quandary of folks who lack their piece supplies, and we thrust be high-class kindly in technique for them.It is a fit possible inclination to have a sneaking suspicion that that evils belong to "everyone else", and that "everyone else" thrust short vacation them or sympathetic with them in some way. The Torah challenges us to internalize evils of others, and handhold personal reliance for dispense make threads favored. If offer are deprived and downtrodden homeland, we are not apparent to set out them to "everyone else", but practically we poverty to tone their nuisance ourselves and see how we can help. We can collective farm with them emphatically if we actually tone their sufferings and anxieties in our own selves.This is true not emphatically when on earth it comes to empathizing with the deprived, the demoralized, the ill. It is true about extroverted reliance in nationalized. Race wish offer to be synagogues and schools, hospitals and medical dig, extroverted evenhandedness agencies etc.--but they sometimes mirror that these institutions thrust be maintained by "everyone else". They do not have a sneaking suspicion that personal reliance for these institutions and causes.If we wish roughly institutions and causes to be supported for the and above of society--then we poverty to tell in the mirror and accomplish that we are the ones who poverty to march brash. We poverty to tone a personal want and reliance.If we are to include a favored world, it thrust come about control our own supposition of personal loyalty, our own idealism, our own diligence.We cannot and essential not have a sneaking suspicion that that "everyone else" thrust handhold unselfishness of everything for us. The defy is not "everyone else". The defy is: us.