Relationships and Commitments: Land Beyond Ownership

There are ways to exist in harmony with all of creation that cultivate the soul and a relationship with the Divine. Hussein Rashid and Rabbi Gordon Tucker bring Muslim and Jewish texts into dialogue to explore how religious traditions resist transactional relationships with the earth and with one another. Drawing on the sabbatical vision from Leviticus and a Muslim sources on overtaxation, they reflect on restraint, renewal, and the dangers of extraction. Timed with converging sacred moments—the beginning of the Jewish calendar, Persian New Year, and the close of Ramadan—this session offers a shared language for ethical living in a fragile world.

Grappling with Slavery in Parashat Behar

May 23, 2025 By Marjorie Lehman | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

Parashat Behar is filled with powerful messages about building a just and compassionate society, emphasizing commandments to care for the land, support the poor, and treat hired workers with fairness and dignity. However, I find that Parashat Behar stirs up more discomfort than ethical inspiration. I am always struck by the difficult distinction it makes between Israelites and non-Israelites with regard to slavery. With the themes of Passover and the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian bondage in my mind, I find it hard to reconcile that Leviticus 25 permits the enslavement of non-Israelites while protecting Israelites from such a fate.

What Can a Bird and a Seed Teach Us About Shemitah?

May 24, 2024 By Yael Hammerman | Commentary | Behar

In Parashat Behar, God tells the Israelites that when they enter the land that God will give them, “the Land shall observe a Sabbath of the Adonai”—veshavta ha’aretz Shabbat l’Adonai (Lev. 25:2). This becomes known as the shemitah year. For six years, you can work to your heart’s content—you can sow, prune, and gather, but in the seventh year, the land shall have a full, complete rest: shabbat shabbaton yihiyeh la’aretz (Lev. 25:4)!

Growing Into Torah

May 12, 2023 By Megan GoldMarche | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

For this week’s parashiyot, Behar-Behukkotai, I might ask: What is something that you took or borrowed from someone that you know it is time to return, perhaps because it is the right thing to do or because it will make you feel lighter? This can be a physical thing like a book or shirt, or something intangible like the hope or support you received from someone. If you are hosting shabbat dinner this week I encourage you to try it out, with a brief explanation of the ideas of Jubilee and returning land to its original owners that appears in this week’s parashah.

The Limitations of Ownership

May 20, 2022 By Yedida Eisenstat | Commentary | Behar

Rashi, the well-known medieval northern French biblical commentator, begins his commentary on this week’s parashah with a famous question, loosely paraphrased as follows: In what way does the matter of shemittah[the sabbatical year] have anything to do with Mount Sinai? In other words, the laws of Leviticus 25—beginning with the agricultural restrictions of the seventh year, the regulations regarding the jubilee year, limitations on sale of land and slaves—are wholly dependent on Israel living in Israel. So why, Rashi asks, were these laws commanded so long before they would become relevant? Of what relevance are the laws of shemittah to the Israelites at Sinai?