It All Belongs to God
Behar, 5784
There’s a Jewish joke so famous that it made its way into the opening of Fiddler on the Roof, though the joke most certainly predates it. A rich man is accustomed to giving a beggar two kopeks a week. One week, however, he gives the beggar only one kopek. “One kopek?” the beggar asks. “Last week you gave me two!” “I’m sorry, but I had a bad week,” replies the rich man. “Well,” says the beggar, “just because you had a bad week, I should suffer?” The presumptuousness of the beggar is what makes the joke funny—he acts as if he is entitled to the rich man’s money. And yet, from the standpoint of the Torah, he is. Furthermore, neither the rich man’s money nor the beggar’s money belong just to themselves, but, says the Torah, are God’s.
This week, we read about the Shemittah cycle of letting the land rest every seven years, and then every fiftieth year having an additional year of rest, a jubilee, when debts are forgiven, slaves released, and property returned to its original owners. Now, God understands that this might seem like a lot to the Israelites, so he warns them not to defraud one another, or to refuse to buy property or lend money as the jubilee approaches. Furthermore, he adds, for those Israelites who are reluctant to let the land lie fallow, as long as they follow the commandments God will cause them to have enough food to eat while waiting out the Shemittah year. For, God says, וְהָאָרֶץ לֹא תִמָּכֵר לִצְמִתֻת כִּי־לִי הָאָרֶץ כִּי־גֵרִים וְתוֹשָׁבִים אַתֶּם עִמָּדִי “The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine, and you are strangers and residents among me.” Rashi understands this line as meaning “Do not cast an evil eye on this”—that is, do not be angry about the release of debts, and the shemittah year, and the freeing of slaves “since it is not yours.”
That is pretty incredible language, and might seem counter-intuitive nowadays. What we own is not ours? Then what is the point of ownership? But the parsha takes it one step beyond that. God enjoins the Israelites to not take one another as slaves if they grow poor and sell their labor, but only as hired servants, until the jubilee year. כִּי־עֲבָדַי הֵם אֲשֶׁר־הוֹצֵאתִי אֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם לֹא יִמָּכְרוּ מִמְכֶּרֶת עָבֶד “For they are my slaves, that I took out of the land of Egypt—they shall not be sold as slaves.” What a rationale! Israelites cannot be sold as slaves because they are already slaves to someone else—God! Who does not give us permission to sell away his slaves. If you don’t get the message, God repeats it at the end of the parsha: כִּי־לִי בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדִים עֲבָדַי הֵם אֲשֶׁר־הוֹצֵאתִי אוֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם “For the children of Israel are my slaves: they are my slaves that I took for the land of Egypt.”
It may feel weird for us to think of ourselves as being slaves to God—especially at a point in time when, thankfully here in the South, I can say that slavery is not a good thing. And yet, thinking of ourselves of belonging to God, as being holy to God (for holy means set apart) helps us answer a lot of questions about being Jewish. A constant question I hear asked is what does it mean that the Jewish people are God’s chosen people? Well, here you have your answer. We are to consider ourselves as being so chosen by God that we don’t truly own anything: everything that is ours is God’s.
But what does this mean for us? Does this mean we need to give up all our property to the synagogue, so we can live an ascetic life as monks? Despite what the synagogue president or the fundraising committee might tell you, no. We are meant to enjoy life, and to eat and enjoy the good land that God has given us, as it says elsewhere in the Torah. But knowing that everything we own belongs to God is meant to temper our attachment to it. We read in Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, that there are four types of people. The first say what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours: those are common people, though some say this is the attitude of Sodom. Another says what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine: this is a boor, an uneducated person. The wicked person says what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine. But the pious person says “what is mine is yours and what is yours is yours.” This is a really lovely sentiment. But, and lets be honest, how easy is it to achieve? It is incredibly difficult. We might naturally resent having to be willing to give while expecting to receive nothing in return. We might resent even laws that might benefit us in some circumstances but not in others, such as laws remitting debts every fiftieth year or having purchased land return to the original owner. Why should we forgive debts? Why should we return the land that we purchased? Are we not entitled to it?
No, says the Torah. We are not. It is all God’s. We are God’s. And as Rashi says we need to learn not to cast an evil eye on things that disadvantage us for the betterment of those worse off than us—since everything is God’s. We are not giving up what we own. We are simply transferring what already belonged to God.
Do I even need to say what the challenge is? Despite all of our desperate struggles throughout life to accumulate possessions, we can’t take anything with us. We never even truly own it. Charitable giving and care for others can feel counter-intuitive, difficult, especially if we are not as financially well-off as we would like to be. But here comes the Torah to remind us that we do not, truly, own anything. We are servants of God. It is our responsibility to take care of God’s children, and to not be jealous of others, but to happily give. This is no easy task. If it was, God would not mention it so often. But it lies at the heart of the Torah, and is what it means for us to be God’s chosen people.
