Parshat Behar: The Other Jubilee
We
are living in auspicious times. I
suspect that no adult in the United Kingdom is unaware of the event that is
about to impact our lives. Her Majesty,
Queen Elizabeth II, will be marking her Platinum Jubilee as Head of State and
we, her loyal subjects, will be blessed to have a long weekend to join in the
fun!
In
fact, as Jews, we have an opportunity to afford ourselves even more holiday
time granted that the aforementioned milestone will be celebrated over Shabbat
which itself leads into Shavuot. I think
we should honour Her Majesty's extraordinary achievement by eating lots of
cheesecake!
Thinking
about this Jubilee more deeply, I am struck by the parallel timing of the
weekend in conjunction with Shavuot. For
on that Shabbat, we will mark the completion of our seven weeks count of the
Omer. It seems to have begun such a long
time ago, whilst we were enjoying our second Sedarim (or the first night of
Chol Hamo'ed if you're Israeli). It has built
up gradually and has edged us slowly and excitedly towards the magnificent
crescendo which we call Shavuot (which literally means 'weeks'). Its culmination on the Sunday, will mark the
anniversary of our nation's very own Coronation - when the King of the Universe
gave us our most precious gift, namely the Torah.
So,
Ladies and Gentlemen on Sunday, 5th June 2022 corresponding with the 6th Sivan
5782, we will be marking two Jubilees - one in Heaven and the other on Earth!
Queen
Elizabeth is the longest reigning monarch in the history of these isles. Her nearest competitor in the longevity
stakes is Queen Victoria at 63 years and 7 months; followed by George III (59
years and 3 months) and Henry III (circa 56 years). The length of time that the Queen has sat on her
throne is a remarkable achievement. But,
with all due respect, when it comes to Jubilees, we were there first!
In
fact, the Queen and the rest of this nation might have used another term to
describe her Platinum anniversary had they not anglicised a word that can be
found in this week's Parsha of Behar.
Let
us set the scene:
Hashem
instructs Moshe to tell the Bnei Yisrael that when they enter Canaan:
The Land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord.
The
next few verses describe the Biblically mandated commandment of Shmittah:
For
six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards and harvest its’
crops.
But
the seventh year shall be to the land a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath to
the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyards. You shall not harvest what grows of itself or
gather the grapes of your unpruned vineyard; it is a year of rest for the land. You may eat the land's Sabbath yield: you,
your male and female servants and the hired worker and resident workers who
live with you, your livestock and the wild animals in your land - whatever the
land produces is there to be eaten. (ie, Shmita produce is ownerless and free
for use by anyone, but can’t be sold).
And
you shall count off seven Sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the
seven Sabbath cycles total forty-nine years.
Then you shall sound the ram's horn.
On the tenth day of the seventh month on the Day of Atonement, you shall
sound the horn across your land.
What
happens after Yom Kippur? The Torah informs us that:
|
You shall consecrate the fiftieth year
and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. This shall be your Jubilee... |
(י)
וְקִדַּשְׁתֶּ֗ם אֵ֣ת שְׁנַ֤ת הַחֲמִשִּׁים֙ שָׁנָ֔ה וּקְרָאתֶ֥ם דְּר֛וֹר
בָּאָ֖רֶץ לְכׇל־יֹשְׁבֶ֑יהָ יוֹבֵ֥ל הִוא֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם... |
The
word 'Jubilee' is the direct equivalent of the Hebrew word 'Yovel'.
In
reading the above, you may have felt a sense of deja-vu, in terms of the language
used to describe the period of seven years.
Did
we not read the following last week?
And
from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the wave offering (i.e. the Omer)—the day after the day of rest—you
shall count for yourselves seven complete weeks. To the day after the seventh week, you shall
count fifty days; then you shall present a grain offering to the Lord...on that
day, you shall make a proclamation; it shall be a sacred assembly for you; you
shall perform no laborious work.
Let
me bring the varying strands together.
Seven
weeks of seven days are followed by the fiftieth day, the festival we know as
Shavuot.
Seven
years of seven Shmittah cycles which were followed by the fiftieth year, which
the Torah refers to as the Yovel. In
fact, as we commemorate Her Majesty's Jubilee, we are now living through a
Shmittah year but these days we don’t know when to celebrate the Yovel.
The Queen's
Platinum Jubilee is, without a doubt, going to be a very special event if we recall
how previous Jubilees were celebrated. I
am old enough to remember the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and both the Golden and
Diamond ones in 1982 and 2012 respectively.
They were simply magnificent. Who
could forget the events of ten years ago, particularly the extraordinary
flotilla up the River Thames (our local waterway!)? Yes, it rained and we
marvelled at how both the Queen and the late Duke of Edinburgh braved the inclement
weather, despite their ages and frailty, but those ships were something to behold,
were they not?
And
then what happened after the ceremonies were over, the glorious street parties
ended and the chintzy memorial plates, coins and spoons were stored away? Not a
great deal. We relived our memories in
late December watching the BBC's review of the year and promised ourselves that
we would never forget the grandeur of the occasion, but life just went on.
People
were born and died, homes were bought and sold, seasons came and went and
before we knew it, another decade had ended.
Remember that there was life before Covid! We hoped and prayed that the Queen and her
Escort would live long enough to allow us to recreate those feel-good moments
in the future. Sadly, this year, the
Queen alone has been able to reach this milestone. The people in the United Kingdom have
experienced a great deal since those heady days just before the London
Olympics.
And
that is where the two Jubilees part ways.
The
Torah tells us that the Yovel year will leave a much greater impact on the
inhabitants of the Land of Israel:
And
the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine; you are merely
migrants, visitors to Me.
If
your brother becomes poor and sells himself to you, do not work him as a slave. He shall abide with you like a hired worker
or a resident worker and work for you until the Jubilee year. Then he and his children, shall be free to
leave you and return to their family and ancestral land—For they are My
servants, whom I brought out of Egypt; they cannot be sold as slaves.— Do not
rule them harshly with heart-breaking labour; fear your God.
Rabbi
Sacks ztl in the last book published during his lifetime, ‘Judaism's Life
Changing Ideas’ wrote the following regarding the laws of the Yovel year:
The
Torah is making a radical point. There
is no such thing as absolute ownership. There
is to be no freehold in the land of Israel because the land belongs ultimately
to Gd. Nor may an Israelite own another
Israelite because we all belong to Gd and have done so ever since he brought
our ancestors out of slavery in Egypt.
To the
Jewish people, the Yovel wasn’t just another Jubilee. It wasn’t an occasion to break out the finest
China and bunting and hold a street party.
It was an opportunity to remind ourselves of how precious freedom is. How land is but a commodity that can be
bought and sold. At the end of the day,
our lives mean so much more when we are able to live them amongst the people we
love, in the bosom of our families. It was
an opportunity to spend an entire year readjusting to the kind of life that we
thought we could never experience again.
This is what the Jubilee really entailed.
At
this moment in time, we don’t know exactly when to celebrate the Yovel because
the last recorded celebration occurred 150 years before the destruction of
the first Beit Hamikdash. The Rambam
wrote that a Yovel would only take place with the arrival of the Moshiach when
all of the Jews would be living again in the land of Israel.
Until
then, we will have to make do with Coronation Chicken over Shabbat and Cheesecakes
on Sunday and Monday.
In
the words of our prayers regarding the Queen:
"In her days and in ours May our
Heavenly Father spread the tabernacle of peace over all the dwellers on earth
and may the redeemer come to Zion; and let us say Amen.”
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