Shabbat Behar

Written by Richard Jacobi Tuesday, 16 May 2006

Shabbat Behar

Bishnat hayovel hazot, tashuvu ish el-achuzato (Lev 25:13). “In this year of jubilee, each of you shall return to his holding.”

So, one of the easier, less controversial, essays I have to write in this summer’s examination season is this one: What compromises or accommodations do both sides of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict need to make if a just, sustainable and peaceful solution is to be achieved?

Now I’m sure all of you agree it’s an easy topic, with unimportant historical events, combining with a low political profile, and some very rational academic analysis, untinged by religious or other factors. Straightforward, simple. Just get it done, Jacobi, I hear you say!

But of course, it’s not that simple. The vexed question of how to bring justice and peace to the land of promise and conflict is one that many better and wiser people than me have been defeated by. We all hope and pray that some combination of brains and desires will yield a sustainable peace, even if we do not know how that will come about.

Yet perhaps, this week’s parasha contains some messages that might help. They also prompted other activities that might have become part of the complex and interwoven history of the land of Israel, as well as contributing to aspects of the uniqueness of the state of Israel and its relationship to the land. In 1897, Professor Herman Schapira used the text of the jubilee law as the basis for his proposal that led, after his death, to the formation of the Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael – the Jewish National Fund. As you all, I’m sure, know, this fund was used to buy land in Palestine / Israel, for the use of the people on a not for profit basis. This fund and its actions do mean that much of Israel’s land cannot be used for property speculation and profiteering, and has enabled a process of greening the land that is envied by many other countries across the world. This social concept of the land over-rides the capitalist, profit-orientated, ‘rich get richer while poor get poorer’, that we in this country still favour.

The key question our parasha confronts us with is: Whose land is it anyway? Well, we are told between verses 18 and 23 very clearly – we can live upon it, we should observe God’s laws faithfully, but “ki li ha-aretz - the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me.” (Lev 25:23)

We do well to remember that while we might return to our inheritance or holding in the jubilee year, that all we possess is really only held on a stewardship basis. Whether we are in this country, Europe or the land of promise and conflict itself, the land we dwell on can be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Richard Jacobi