Parashat Behar Bechukotai: How to be a Mensch

 A close friend of mine told me a wonderful story earlier this week.

We were discussing my recent trip to Poland and he related that he had visited the country several years ago.  When he went to Auschwitz, his guide was a Polish man called Peter.  My friend said that Peter excelled in his role and exhibited a wealth of knowledge both about the Shoah and the notorious location they were visiting.  Whilst leading the group around one of the camps (either Auschwitz I or Auschwitz II Birkenau), he told them the following story.

Many years earlier, Peter had similarly led a group of American tourists around, and during the visit one of them asked him if he had ever seen the film ‘Schindler’s List’.  He replied that he hadn’t and the man was taken aback that a guide, who was so knowledgeable about the subject, had not seen one of the key films made about the Shoah.  After all, it focuses on the Jews of Krakow who, unlike nearly every member of my maternal grandmother’s family, were saved by Oskar Schindler.

The man offered to send Peter a copy of the DVD.  Although he thought this a little strange, he willingly supplied his address and sure enough, a few weeks later, it arrived in the post.  When he opened the package, he read the attached note which had words to the effect of, ‘With best wishes, from Steven.’

What is the definition of a mensch?

Leo Rosten, in his seminal work, ‘The Joys of Yiddish’, provides the following definitions:

1.     A human being.  “After all, he is a mensch, not an animal.”

2.    An upright, honourable, decent person.  “Come on, act like a mensch.”

3.    Someone of consequence; someone to admire and emulate; someone of noble character.  “Now there is a real mensch.”

If I asked you to name five films directed by Steven Spielberg, what would be the first one that comes to mind?  Jaws?  E.T?  Jurassic Park?  Raiders of the Lost Ark or Close Encounters of the Third Kind?   

When quizzed on which film mattered the most to the man who singlehandedly created the annual summer blockbuster with Jaws, his answer has always been ‘Schindler’s List’.

And why was that?

He replied that it was the first time he felt he wasn’t just entertaining the world—he was serving it.  He was giving voice to those who had none.  He was honouring the memory of the Shoah.

He refused to take a salary, director fees, royalties or a share of the profits, calling any personal profit from the Shoah story ‘blood money’ and instead used these to set up and fund the USC Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of survivors, including that of my mother in 1997, four years after the film came out (see https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9bkcbf/til_steven_spielberg_refused_a_salary_for/).

Steven Spielberg satisfies all three definitions suggested by Mr Rosten.

Parashat Behar, which is the first of our double sidrot, teaches us the laws of Shmittah and Yovel whereby Gd tells us that the land of Israel is different from every other country in the world.  For six years, we can work the land and reap the rewards of the crops we have sown.  However, in the seventh year, we are to re-enact the weekly model we follow and just as we keep shabbat, so too, must the land be sanctified.  It must be freed from service and allowed to rest.

The Shmittah year is also significant in that it enables a Hebrew slave to gain freedom from his master, should he wish to do so.

When we complete a cycle of seven Shmittah years (i.e. forty-nine years), the fiftieth is called the Yovel (from whence we derive the word ‘Jubilee’).

At this juncture, all slaves are freed, all debts are annulled and any land that we may have bought from another Jew in the period following the previous cycle returns to its original owner.  G-d tells us that as He owns the land, He has the power to make decisions as to who is entitled to consider it their own.

The laws of Yovel run against the grain of our materialistic society. We grow up assuming that once we buy something, it’s ours forever. And in the past — when slaveowners traded in human beings — whatever was purchased was considered the owner’s property in perpetuity.

The Torah is teaching us a very powerful lesson which is:

• We are not the ultimate owners of anything.
• All power is temporary.
• Wealth is temporary.
• Status is temporary.
• Only God is permanent.

When we respect the land, through keeping the laws of Shmittah, and prioritise the treatment of people, by granting them their freedom, we accept the fact that instead of dominating the world, we are instead elevating it.  This is the road to our becoming a mensch.

Giving instead of taking and acting in a responsible manner towards nature in all its forms.

In Bereishit mankind was formed b‘tzelem Elokim, in G-d’s image.  When we behave in this elevated manner, we are effectively being ‘menschen’ – decent, upstanding people.

A mensch accepts that dignity is not earned by success but by responsibility.

These last few years have been very challenging for us as a community.  Some people who we thought were menschen were silent when they should have spoken up.  Others who we didn’t know came forward and showed us what it means to be a mensch.

It doesn’t cost anything to behave decently.  In other words, to be a mensch shouldn’t take the kind of atrocities we have witnessed to bring the best out of people.

Perhaps, if more behaved in a menschlich (humane) way, irrespective of their gender, religious or ethnic backgrounds, we’d have more Spielbergs and less...I won’t list anyone but I’m sure you can think of someone!

May we be blessed to have more menschen in our lives.

Shavuah Tov.