Leviticus Cycle Three Behar BeChuko-thai 25:1 to 27:34

Behar BeChuko-thai

What we see here are extremes. In Behar we are given freedom and beauty. In BeChuko-tai, beauty and horror. The world we embrace, we learn, is ultimately our construct and our choice based on behavior patterns born from our soul and our vision. In order to receive that vision beyond visions though we can only do it through metaphor. The importance of metaphor in our sacred writings is undeniable. Hillman, Buber, Heschel…these modern scholars and more seem to agree.

What is the metaphor here? It revolves around space and time, the land and the years. So while (yes) these parshas are about being good boys and girls and getting the reward and/or the punishment, there is much more. There’s the digging deep into our radiance and our shadows, to the place where absolute joy and pain merge.

Let’s begin with Behar. The parasha starts by letting us know that the following commandments were given to Moses literally in Mt. Sinai. I have two questions. First, there are many commandments. Why are these so important that we are reminded here of the place in which they are received? Second, why is the pronoun in used instead of on?

Next, we are given the laws of the jubilee or yavol. Every seven years the land is to be given a rest. We are not to plant seeds or harvest. Then, every seven times seven years hereditary homes go back to their original owners and slaves are set free. The shofar is to be blown on Yom Kippur of the forty ninth year to mark the jubilee.

The two overwhelming ideas revolve around space and time. In terms of the land (and its rest) Rashi says that it’s for the sake of God. For one year we have to stop pretending that we own the land because everything is ultimately divine. In terms of time, in the Babylonian Talmud it says that the word yamim (Behar 25:29) which literally means days, in this parasha can also mean years. Days, years, what’s the difference, right? Clearly, according to both Rashi and the rabbis of Gemara land does not necessarily mean land and days don’t necessarily mean days. Pieces of land are inter-changeable, made solid not by us but by God. Our words used for time are caught in interpretation, not only from language to language but from the letters to our minds.

Let’s look at the number seven, so often repeated in this parasha, multiplied by itself, symbolizing not only completion but wholeness brought about by the infinite and the exponential. Let’s take the number to both the land and the years, dig deep within both, find layers multiplied by layers. While the land is certainly our home and sacred on its surface… as we dig deeper into the earth, in Mt Sinai, we get the millions of people who lived here, their bones, the minerals from their bones, the gradations of not only life patterns but thought systems, spiritual constructs, our bodies merged, our ideas molded into one idea, one God. Loves, flashes of divine sparks, contemplative moments, joy, suffering, the invisible powers of night and day, of reaching to God, are packed and made firm beneath our feet. This is not just the land, it’s not even us, It’s beyond us. We do not own this, not as one, not as a community. We can work it, water it, care for it, eat the fruits from it. But sooner or later, even the most active of minds needs to stop and settle in, breathe, feel what has been learned, fit into that new cerebral mold, solidify, stop struggling, stop achieving. Sooner or later the mind has to know the mind. God has to know God. The moment has to push through all human organization of time parcels. This is what Be-Har is really all about.

By the time we arrive at BeChuko-thai therefore we are deep in the metaphor, woken up by the shofar. Our surface actions, we know by now, are a result of our ability to grasp what happens on all levels. How we act is a reflection of the depth of our vision, the value of our vow, our memory of the covenant, our keeping of the mitzvoth, of the Sabbath, of the Sabbath of Sabbaths, of reverence for God. How we act vibrates beyond earth and time, responds to the cellular particles of God that enters our eyes. This is beyond judgment or anger. It is merely what is, ours to take hold of actively, with intention, mindfulness, compassion and the understanding of a God essence beyond even our twenty first century dreams.

Talking about dreams, Hunter Thompson says that when elephants get old they limp to the hills; when Americans get old they get on the highway and die in big cars. A different metaphor, same idea, much darker. It lacks choice. In my opinion, yes, we can be soul dead stuck in our human stuff. But we can also have spiritual integrity, the gift of Torah.

So may we choose life, the best reflection we can find, merging with layers beneath and above. May we get off the highway. May we all be blessed with the light and the shadows within.