Shavua tov and happy Lag B’Omer!!
As we covered last week, Lag B’Omer is the 33rd day in the counting of the Omer, beginning on the second day of Pesah, Passover, and continuing for 49 days leading to the holiday of Shavuot. For many, many years the weeks between Passover and Shavuot were very ‘quiet weeks’, almost weeks of mourning, no weddings, no celebrations, no haircuts. Over the last several hundred years these 7 weeks have taken on days of both celebration and very real mourning. Since the end of World War 2 we have added Holocaust Memorial Day and Memorial Day in Israel, as well as Israel Independence Day to our annual calendars. However, Lag B’Omer’s history goes back to the days following the destruction of the First Temple.
One more thing…what does Lag B’Omer mean? All of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet also have numerical values as well. Starting with aleph, is the number 1 and continuing through all of the letters in the aleph-bet. We use the letter ‘yud’, 10 ,and ‘chet’, 8, as the good luck number 18 or life, ‘chai’. Lag, is the combination of the letters ‘lamed’, 30, and the letter ‘gimmel’, 3, for the total of 33. The 33rd day in the counting of the Omer. Weddings and other celebrations are permitted, as are haircuts, too. Over the last several years I have used Israel Independence Day as my haircut day, just to emphasize the importance of Israel in our lives.
Now, on to this week’s Torah portions, yes, two portions again this week. These are the last two parashiyot in the book of Va-yikra, Leviticus, B’Har and B’Hukkotai.
B’Har, literally, the mountain, but what is actually said is, “The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, speak to the Israelite people and say to them…”in this parasha we continue with a plethora of laws concerning the land of Israel and the ownership of the land. Most of the rest of the parasha deals with the the seventh year of rest for the land and the 50th year of rest for the land. Just as we have a six-day work week and Shabbat on the 7th day, so it is for the land and farms and the fruit trees and fields…”When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of your Lord: You shall not read the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land.”
Those are the rules for the sh’mitah year, the 7th year of the cycle. But the portion goes on and tells us, “You shall count off seven weeks of years-seven times seven years-so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the horn(the shofar)loud; in the seventh month(Tishrei), on the tenth day of the month-the Day of Atonement(Yom Kippur)-you shall have the shofar sounded throughout you land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year.” During the 50th year all land that was sold to others was to be returned to the original owner of the land. This is a very interesting and was to be used to try and keep the level of wealth in the Israelite community more even over the years. The goal was that no one person or family or tribe could acquire so much land that they controlled the community and perhaps caused large portions of the community to be confined to work as laborers and be kept in lives of poverty.
The next line in the portion as really amazing and should be familiar to all of us. Chapter 25, verse 10 states, “and you shall hallow the 50th year, You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all of its inhabitants.” Sound familiar? Those are the words that are engraved forever on our Liberty Bell, taken from this week’s parasha. The Torah continues, “it shall be a jubilee year for you; each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family.”
The parasha continues to go on in great detail about how to treat those people who come to work for you on your property. How to treat them humanely, whether Israelite or not. How long to keep them as ‘slaves’ until they have paid off their debt to the owner.
The last verses of B’har lead us into the next parasha, B’Hukkotai. The last words are taken from the beginning of Chapter 26, verses 1 and 2. “You shall NOT make idols for youselves, or set up for yourselves carved images or pillars, or place figured stones in your land to worship upon, for I the Lord am your God. You shall keep my Sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary, Mine, the Lord’s”.
And now we continue with the 2nd parasha. B’Hukkotai is an unusual parasha. It is very similar in some ways to portions in the book of D’varim, Deuteronomy, the last book of the Torah. It beings with a very specific and direct warning to the people of Israel. Between the opening verses and the end of the parasha, we read several very lengthy lists of punishments which await the people in the Land of Israel unless the residents of the land adhere to God’s laws letter by letter. There is no compromise here. There is no debate about the laws and who needs to follow them, these are the laws and you must follow them or suffer the wrath of God.
The last of the rules in the parasha deal with the commandment of tithing, taking the 10th of each animal and produce and dedicating them to the priests and the Temple.
The last words of the parasha are familiar to us. Some scholars believe that these words were perhaps “added” to the end of the portion, “These are the commandments that the Lord gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai.” These are the concluding words of the book of Leviticus and prepare us for the actual wandering in the desert for 40 years. We would conclude the reading of the Torah with the three important words that are keeping us together as a community during these trying times, “chazak, chazak, v’nit-chazek”, be strong, keep strong and continue to be strong as a community.
Wishing everyone an early Shabbat shalom and if you have questions for me, let’s answer questions on the 4th Shabbat, this month on May 16th
Please send me any questions you’d like to discuss to my email, rrresnick@aol.com or text me at (818)388-5580…