Behar

📜 The Story

'Behar' means 'on the mountain.' On Mount Sinai, God teaches Moses the mitzvah (commandment) of Shmita, the Sabbath year for the land. Every seventh year, the people must let their fields, vineyards and orchards rest. They do not plant or harvest in the usual way. This reminds everyone that the land really belongs to God, and we are only taking care of it.

After seven Shmita cycles, forty-nine years in all, comes a very special fiftieth year called the Yovel, the Jubilee year. On Yom Kippur of that year, the shofar (ram's horn) was blown all over the land, and everyone heard the words 'Proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live in it.' In the Jubilee year, all Hebrew servants went free and went home to their families.

In the Jubilee year, land also went back to the family it first belonged to. The Land of Israel was divided among the tribes and families. If someone became poor and had to sell his field, it came back to him or his children in the Jubilee year. That way every family kept its share of the land forever.

The parsha also teaches how to buy and sell fairly and not to cheat each other in business. When someone becomes poor, we must help him get back on his feet, the way you would catch someone who is starting to fall, so he does not slip further down.

Behar also says not to charge interest to a fellow Jew who needs to borrow money. And it teaches that a Hebrew servant must be treated with kindness and respect, because all of Israel really belongs to God, who took them out of Egypt.