Thoughts on Liberty

THOUGHTS ON PROCLAIMING LIBERTY
D'var Torah
Shabbat B'har

Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn
Temple Sinai
New Orleans, Louisiana

Relax! We're getting close, but we're not there yet. The end of the Book of Leviticus, that is! And here, very close to its conclusion, the Torah introduces us to the concepts of Shmittah, the Sabbatical Year, and the Yovel, the Jubilee Year. We know that Israelite society did observe this Shmittah, which means "let something drop." Landowner and pauper are to be on equal footing during this special year.

Every seven years the land is to lay fallow. That is, no seeds are sown, no vineyards reaped. The land experiences a sabbath in the seventh year, which parallels our human seventh day Shabbat. The remission of debts was to be a part of the seventh year, but practically it was clear that no real society could so operate, so in the first century BCE it was abrogated by Rabbi Hillel by a legal device known as the prosbul.

The Jubilee Year is an extension of this idea. Following seven Sabbatical years, a Jubilee Year is declared. Like the Sabbatical Year, the land also lays fallow but, in addition, all property returns to the one to whom it was originally apportioned following the conquest of the land by Joshua. Most importantly, all Hebrew slaves were now to be freed.

Here's our text: Leviticus 25:10

And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family.

As with the land (which belongs only to God), so, too, with an Israelite, we are ultimately only God's servants, and therefore should not be enslaved to any other master.

If one is forced because of poverty to accept slave status, he is not to be treated harshly, and may be redeemed at any time by a relative-or by a himself, if he can find the means. If not, with the arrival of the Jubilee Year, he must go free.

Commentators through the centuries have noted the words chosen by our text in broadly addressing the liberation of slaves. Why does the verse state that liberty, or release, is to be proclaimed to all the inhabitants? After all, most of its inhabitants were not slaves. What relevance does the freeing of slaves in the Jubilee Year have for them?

Some suggest that the freedom and release experienced by the former slaves extends to all the inhabitants. That is, the freedom of one sector of society creates ripples that are felt by all other sectors of society. In granting liberty to those who are enslaved, the entire nation is freed from its national enslavements-i.e., threats by external enemies who may limit our own freedom.

For instance, in Jeremiah 34:17, the Prophet castigated the people for ignoring the mandate to release their slaves in the 50^th year. Reformulating our famous text from Leviticus (which, by the way, you may recognize because it is found on the Liberty Bell), Jeremiah charges:

You have not listened to Me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Lo! I proclaim your liberty-declares the Lord-to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine.

By rejecting the idea of freedom for the most vulnerable in society, the entire nation is to become enslaved by its vulnerability to war, disease, and hunger. By enslaving others, we become enslaved. Our freedom is actualized only when it is not at the expense of another's freedom. Until we are all free, none of us is truly free.

In formalizing into law these enlightened understandings of the ripple effect of individual freedom on a society, Jewish tradition made a statement which must be re-articulated in every age and in every place: only through law can liberty be experienced by the entire nation.

We see that lesson lived out all too dramatically in the morning's headlines.

"Anarchy looming, Kurd leader says."

Informed people warn our government each day that we risk squandering the earlier victory in battle and the defeat of Saddam Hussein by allowing chaos and anarchy to take domestic control of Iraq.

As jungle law asserts itself among the Iraqi populace, which is uninitiated in democratic self-government, the individuals' newly acquired freedom only turns mean and fierce.

The current emergency unfolding in Iraq, and which is being dreadfully underplayed by both politicians and press alike who seem to have gone on to other concerns and stories, presents the Islamic faith a stern and historic challenge.

What has this faith to say about justice, equity, defense of the defenseless, the establishment of societal order and the humanitarian condition under which every soul should live?

What has the Islamic clergy to say at such an historic watershed and opportunity to begin again?

Ultimately, the worth of any faith must be measured by its ability to influence and affect the actions of its adherents. For those who claim to live by the Koran, their sternest hour of testing has arrived.

Will the sons and daughters of the Prophet Mohammad summon the wisdom, the strength, and the discipline to proclaim this year their jubilee, unto all the inhabitants thereof? Let us pray that they will.

Amen