In Israel: Be-Hukkotai:
This week’s reading consists for the most part of a long list of misfortunes that will befall the people of Israel if they fail to keep God’s commandments. These punishments—diseases, drought, military defeat, and exile—are recited in terrifying detail, so much so that it is customary for the Torah reader to read them in an ominous undertone.
However, the reading does not consist solely of bad news. It begins with a brief mention of the good things that Israel will enjoy so long as it upholds the covenant with God. These opening blessings, however quickly listed, are worthy of some consideration.
First come various blessings crucial to Israel’s agrarian economy: plentiful rainfall that will yield bounteous harvests. Next is Israel’s continued possession of sufficient military might to ward off any attackers, human armies or wild beasts. Then comes human fertility and the resultant population increase. All this ends with God’s solemn promise:
“I will place My dwelling in your midst and not be repelled by you, but I will walk about in your midst and be your God, while you will be My people. I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk komemiyyut.”
These last words of God’s promised blessings return us to the exodus: God is the one who freed Israel from Egyptian slavery and “broke the bars of your yoke”—that is, freed you from the bowing posture of a yoked ox plowing the yield—and caused you to walk komemiyyut. This last term occurs only once in the whole Bible, in this particular verse, but its meaning is not particularly obscure. It comes from the common root k-w-m, “rise up” or “stand.” In this form, and following the previous clause’s mention of being bowed down under a yoke, komemiyyut seems to mean standing up straight and tall. (That is why, in Mod Heb, komemiyyut has acquired the meaning of “independence,” or “self-rule, sovereignty.”)
It’s interesting, however, that the Torah here asserts the very opposite of what is prescribed elsewhere for Israel. In last week’s reading (see below on the reading “Be-Har”), Israel’s enslavement is said to have continued after the exodus, with only a change of masters. That is, when God took the Israelites out of Egypt, he was essentially acquiring a bunch of slaves, who then automatically became His slaves, obligated to do all that was commanded in the Torah. In this sense, they were not free men and women at all; they had simply been taken on by a new employer, God. In light of this, the punishments listed in this week’s reading acquire a rather different meaning. How dare a bunch of slaves “reject My laws and spurn My rules”? A slave’s first and unarguable duty was to obey.
And then there is the matter of standing up tall. Is the Torah implying that this is ever afterwards to be Israel’s proper posture? Actually, this brings to mind a famous dictate of the Talmud:
Rabbi Joshua b. Levi said: “It is forbidden to walk for four cubits with an upright posture, as it is written ‘the world is full of his glory’ [Isa 6:3].” R. Huna, the son of Rabbi Joshua [said]: “Let no one go more than four cubits with head uncovered.” (b. Talmud, Qiddushin 31a)
The idea is that walking with an arrogant, ramrod posture is a kind of self-glorification, so that if, as the prophet Isaiah said, the whole world is full of God’s glory, then there is no room for your own. In other words, don’t walk komemiyyut. By the same token, don’t go more than a few feet with head uncovered, because that too was considered a sign of arrogance in rabbinic times.
Thus, the Torah recounts that when the Israelites left Egypt, they walked out “with hand held high” (Exod. 14:8), that is, they didn’t flee the Egyptians but walked out proudly. To capture the same idea in a later day, the Aramaic targum translated the phrase “with hand held high” as “with head uncovered.” Hence the above-cited prescription not to walk with an upright posture or walk more than four cubits with head uncovered were two ways of saying “Don’t be arrogant.”
In fact, rabbinic writings consistently stress the value of humility, perhaps most emphatically in the Mishnaic tractate Pirkei Avot. “Be very, very humble,” it says, and reiterates this sentiment in various particulars. “Busy yourself with Torah, and humble yourself vis-à-vis any other person”; “Be the first to greet anyone” [that is, don’t wait for him to say “Hi” first] “and be the tail among lions rather than a leader among foxes.” “Let the honor of your fellow be as dear to you as your own,” and so on and so forth.
I sometimes wish that the little head covering that observant Jewish males wear today, the kippah, was still a sign of humility—that’s what it was first intended to be. But every once in a while it seems to signify just the opposite, as if those who wear it believe they are somehow preternaturally better than everyone else. For such people, the kippah has become a symbol of their own entitlement. Perhaps the temptation to arrogance always had been present—hence, all these numerous warnings against it. There must have been a good reason for the Rabbis to keep saying, “Be very, very humble.” In any case, this week’s reading, with its stern evocation of punishment, is as good a time as any to heed the Rabbis’ words.
Shabbat shalom!
Outside Israel: BeHar:
This week’s reading is rather short—often, it’s combined with the reading that follows, Be-Ḥukkotai, but this year it stands alone. Perhaps for that reason, its rather subtle message is sometimes missed in a too-quick read-through.
It’s not exactly clear when the Torah intended to locate this week’s words: they could have been spoken as an earlier part of the Sinai revelation and only narrated now, as a kind of flashback, or they may have been saved until now. Whichever the case, one thing is clear: the incident of the cowardly spies (Numbers 13) had not yet taken place, so as far as the Israelites knew at the time, they were only a few weeks away from entering the land of Canaan, there to take possession of the territory that God had sworn to give them. The people were no doubt eager to receive this gift, but the realists among them must certainly have understood that the conquest of Canaan would involve some loss of life and limb. It is really against this background that one must view the contents of this week’s reading.
What does it say? The first subject mentioned is the sabbatical year, during which, the Israelites are told, “You shall not plant your field or prune your vineyard, you shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest [that is, the things that will spontaneously grow here and there even without planting] or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land” (Lev 25:4-5). After this comes the law of the jubilee year, which occurs once every fifty years; among other things, the jubilee essentially brings to an end any prior land deals negotiated since the last jubilee, In both matters, it is clear that Israel is not the full owner of its real estate. “The land is Mine,” God says bluntly, “and you are just tenants or squatters with Me.”
The average ancient Israelite might not be blamed at this point for feeling somewhat let down. “Are You really asking me to undertake the conquest of Canaan so that You can tell me after it’s all over that the land really belongs to You?” And the answer is: yes.
It gets worse. Twice, in this week’s reading, God tells Israel that they themselves will occupy the lowest rank in the society that they are to establish in Canaan. “For they are My slaves,” God says of the Israelites, “whom I took from out of the land of Egypt…” (Lev 25:42), and again, “For the Israelites are My slaves—My slaves they are!—whom I took out of the land of Egypt” (Lev 25:55). The point is apparently that, having been taken out of Egypt as slaves, the Israelites merely changed owners at the exodus, but not status.
Well, being a slave sounds like a fairly debased status, but a lot depends on who your employer is. Being God’s slave means worshiping Him—in fact, the regular word for work, ‘avodah, also means worship. And worship, in terms that are made quite explicit throughout the Torah, means not only bringing sacrifices to a sanctuary (which is mostly what worship involved elsewhere in the ancient Near East), but keeping all of the divine commandments—every day, day in and day out. In that sense, “slave” is not a bad description of what God had in store for Israel.
In keeping with this, land ownership itself must hardly have seemed appropriate for such slaves—and indeed, the Torah is quite consistent on this point. God has given Israel custody of the land, but it is not an unconditional gift. The sabbatical year, the jubilee year, and in other matters as well, Israel’s continued existence in its land is indeed dependent on its continued service of God, ‘avodat H’ in Hebrew.
As to land ownership, Israel’s status will only be slightly bettered once they have indeed entered Canaan. In its requirement of farmers to bring an offering of their first fruits to the temple, the Torah specifies the words that people are to say as they hand over their basket of goods to the officiating priest. It is remarkable that, although elsewhere the Torah is not shy of mentioning Israel’s illustrious ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, here these ancestors are summarized in a throwaway phrase: “My father was a fugitive Aramaean who went down to Egypt…” Surely this sentence was designed to shock: We were nothing, it means to say, until God freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand, and we are still conscious of who the real landowner is. “That’s why I am now bringing the first fruits of the soil that You, O Lord, have given me” (Deut 26:10).