d’var torah
A Place of Choosing
BY RABBI LYNNDA TARGAN
T Parshat Behar
his week’s parsha, Behar,
located in the middle of the
Book of Leviticus, also partly
containing The Holiness Code in the
Torah, places the Israelites, renewed
from their freedom from Egyptian
enslavement, at Mount Sinai.

In their efforts toward self-determi-
nation, we find them learning how to
be a holy community as they continue
their journey towards the fulfillment of
the Biblical Covenant, i.e., to enter and
dwell in the land of Israel.

The narrative begins with the laws
of indentured servitude and land ten-
ure, including, but not limited to an
agricultural discussion of shmita, the
Sabbatical year, which is required rest
for the land every seven years, just
as the weekly seventh day of creation
is the weekly biblical day of Sabbath
respite. The text continues with a dis-
cussion about the Yovel, the Jubilee
observance, which occurs in year 50
during a seven times seven plus one
cycle every half-century.

Embedded in that discussion are
the words, “Proclaim liberty through-
out the land for all its inhabitants”
(Leviticus 25:10). The commanded bro-
ken blast of the shofar is a clarion
wake-up call to action.

These words have a familiar ring
to those of us living in Philadelphia.

Perhaps because we know them as the
inscription emblazoned on the cracked
Liberty Bell, which pealed thunder-
ously after the historic signing of the
Declaration of Independence. America
is a symbol of freedom all over the
world, and yet, sometimes we sleep-
ily take these freedoms for granted.

Perhaps we might at times be too com-
placent about rising up against chal-
lenges when they’ve been threatened,
even though, as we are witnessing now,
those freedoms that we assumed to be
iron-clad, are not absolute.

The theme of freedom and indepen-
dence resonates in the here and now in
a world where there is an overwhelm-
ing radical dissonance on a plethora of
issues embodying the intense values of
freedom — COVID behavior, freedom
in the Ukraine and other parts of the
world, religious freedoms for all, free-
dom against antisemitism, race rela-
tions, climate change, LGBTQ rights,
Israel and women’s agency over their
own bodies — just to name a few.

This week’s Torah portion reminds us
that we are all figuratively at a moun-
tain at a place of choosing. Neurologist,
psychiatrist, philosopher, writer and
Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote,
“Between stimulus and response there
is a space. In that space is our power to
choose our response. In our response
lies our growth and freedom.”
Through the chronicle of expected
behaviors delineated in the Torah
regarding shmita and Yovel obser-
vances relating to the Promised Land,
we learn that the concepts about inde-
pendence and choice pertain to the
civility expected of humanity.

In one passage God reminds us,
“The land is Mine; you are sojourn-
ers and residents with Me” (Leviticus
25:23). Freedom, thus, as wayfarers on
God’s land maintains an adherence
to social and communal responsibility
and activism, which, without excep-
tion, extends to all of God’s creations
— land, animals and peoples. It is aspi-
rational that we are to leave our world
better and a more empathic place than
when we entered into it.

Behar then comes to teach us about
the values of reverence, social justice,
cultural morality, caring for others,
compassion, respecting differences and
rising up against injustices in all of
its iterations. Especially those of us to
whom God has been generous, much
is expected.

It is a manifesto to stop, listen and
be transformed by performing acts
of kindness and ma’asim tovim, good
deeds. During the shmita and Yovel
years, the Bible tells us that our debts
are canceled. But the debt to our inher-
itance, to our people, to our families,
to society, to humanity, and to those in
need, can never be nullified. Freedom
is not freedom from responsibility.

On the contrary, freedom embraces
a deepened understanding of our per-
sonal and societal obligations as well
as our accountability for heightened
social consciousness. Klal Yisrael are-
vim zeh ba zeh, we learn. All of Israel
is responsible, one for the other. This is
a truth for our times and for all times.

Moving forward, I hope that we can
all be mindful of the powerful mes-
sage of the Yovel, and even though our
Jewish calendar cycle is now closer to
Shavuot than to Yom Kippur, I submit
that we imagine hearing the shofar,
described as a “sound beyond a sound,”
as an ever-present reverberation, to pay
mindful attention to the concept of
freedom, Earth’s riches, and to all of
the members of God’s sacred commu-
nity who must share them. JE
Rabbi Lynnda Targan is a commu-
nity rabbi and the co-founder of The
Women’s Midrash Institute. She is a
teacher, life cycle officiant, activist, wife
and author of “Funny You Don’t Look
Like a Rabbi, A Memoir of Unorthodox
Transformation.” The Board of Rabbis
of Greater Philadelphia is proud to pro-
vide diverse perspectives on Torah com-
mentary for the Jewish Exponent. The
opinions expressed in this column are
the author’s own and do not reflect the
view of the Board of Rabbis.

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