Shabbat Re'eh

Written by Rabbi Professor Marc Saperstein Thursday, 28 August 2008

“Utopian Legislation”
Parashat Re’eh

The fifteenth chapter of Deuteronomy begins by commanding an act of release (shemitah) to occur at the end of every seven years. The seven-year cycle immediately evokes the legislation in Leviticus 25, which is also based on a seven-year cycle. But there is a significant difference. The laws of Leviticus require that the land be allowed to remain fallow every seventh year and that land that has been sold reverts to its original owner on the fiftieth, Jubilee year.

Furthermore, those sold into indentured servitude are to go free even if their period of servitude is less than the maximum of six years set in Exodus 21:1–6 and our own parashah (Deut. 15: 12–18).In the midst of the chapter, three verses deal with loans, but these have nothing to do with the cycle of seven or fifty years; rather, they prohibit Israelites from taking interest on a loan extended to fellow Israelites.

The Deuteronomy legislation adds a new dimension to the seven-year cycle. All loans extended within the Israelite community are to be forgiven at the end of seven years (Deut. 15: 1–6). Once every seven years, the registers of personal indebtedness are to be wiped clean. The debtor unable to pay off his loan need only wait until this date arrives, and then he gets a new start, free from the pressures that often crush the poor and stifle the initiative of those attempting to escape from poverty. This debt-forgiveness comes without any need for a public declaration of bankruptcy that would certainly be humiliating to the debtor and his family. It is obviously progressive legislation, providing a safeguard from the oppressive power of pitiless creditors and harsh economic forces.

The loans envisioned in this legislation do not seem to have been intended to apply to loans taken for business ventures that may provide a large profit. They must rather have been loans taken by Israelites who have fallen on hard times and were in desperate need for economic support. The bread-winner of the family falls ill and is unable to earn wages to buy food. The crops in one’s field are attacked by a blight that ruins the harvest. The roof of one’s home springs a bad leak and has to be replaced before the winter rains come. Under these circumstances, the compassionate thing to do is to extend a helping hand by making available the money necessary to allow the needy family to get by, despite the awareness that it may never be repaid. The lender might think of it as a kind of charity that preserves the dignity of the needy though the appearance of a loan. 

But even under these compelling circumstances an obvious question arises: will such a system work? Will the rules stated in the Torah indeed be faithfully observed in a manner conducive to the purpose intended? In the continuation of the chapter, we have a fascinating indication that the ideals of this legislation were not so simple to implement:

If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements . . . do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman. Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs. Beware lest you harbour the base thought, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching,” so that you are mean to your needy kinsman and give him nothing. He will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will incur guilt. Give to him readily and have no regrets when you do so, for in return the Lord your God will bless you in all your efforts and in all your undertakings (Deut. 15:7–10).

The warning in the passage appears to be a response to the reality observable in Israelite society during the biblical period. As the seventh year approached, people were more and more reluctant to extend loans, even to those in need, as it became increasingly unlikely that the poor would be able recover sufficiently to repay the loan before the date of universal debt forgiveness. Since no interest on the loan was permitted, there was no obvious incentive, beyond the satisfaction of doing a good deed, to justify the extension of credit. Legislation intended to help the poor was having the effect of making it more difficult for the poor get the loans they required. Thus the need for the warning and promise of a material reward to compensate for the lost capital: God will bless all the efforts and undertakings of those who provide to the poor interest-free loans that would soon be forgiven (Deut. 15:10).

In the post-biblical period, the remission of debts every seven years was considered to apply only to the land of Israel, not to Jews living in the Diaspora. But the prohibition of interest applies to all loans between Jews, wherever they are living. The dynamic exemplified by the verses from our parashah is very much in evidence in an extraordinary passage by Rabbi Isaac Aboab, one of the greatest Talmudists in the generation of the Expulsion from Spain. Aboab was not afraid to speak out in his sermons about social justice among Jews. Discussing the problem of loans to the poor in the context of the Biblical legislation in our parashah, (Deut. 15:7–9), he makes a specific contemporary application:

This problem pertaining to loans has arisen many times, especially where I live. Because the Torah forbids the taking of interest when a loan is given to a Jew, no one wants to lend to him.  Since the impoverished Jew cannot get an interest-bearing loan as a Gentile can, he cannot find the money he needs, and he dies of hunger. Thus the commandment turns into a transgression. I am tempted to say that it should be considered a greater sin for someone to refuse to make the loan than it is for someone to make the loan and take interest, for in the first case there is danger and in the second there is not. . . . I have dwelt at length on this because I see wretched Jews crying out and not being answered, because of our sins, in this time of dearth.

Jewish ethical and homiletical literature is filled with denunciations by moralists of businessmen who fail to observe properly the prohibitions against loans on interest. Rabbis frequently emphasize the seriousness of these laws and urge that Jews consult with competent authorities who will keep them from improper loans. Apparently the promises of divine blessing in our parashah for the undertakings of the lenders was not sufficient to ensure compliance. Under the biblical laws of Jewish loans, the credit market was simply drying up, and impoverished Jews were suffering. In response, we find a leading rabbinic figure saying, in effect, that the transgressions entailed in taking interest are less serious than depriving the poor of what they need to survive. 

While many biblical laws are not without problems for our moral sensibilities, many of them - including many in our parashah - impress us as strikingly humane. But even with the best of intentions, efforts to regulate society may turn out to have unintended consequences, and even occasionally make things work. Like Rabbi Isaac Aboab, we must retain the flexibility to look at the impact of the commandments of the Torah, and when necessary to modify them in accordance with our convictions about the needs of real human beings and the kind of just and compassionate society that God truly wants. 

Rabbi Professor Marc Saperstein
August 2008