The nearest redeemer

B’har-Bechukotai

Lev. 25:1 – 37:24

            B’Har begins with a description of the Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee (Yovel) Year. In the 50th (Jubilee) Year, we are to “proclaim liberty throughout the land” and property is restored to its ancestral owners. 

            Bechukotai, the final parasha in Vayikra, begins with a statement promising blessing if the People follow Adonai’s ways. The blessings are discussed in detail. But, if the People disobey, terrible punishments will be visited upon them, and these, too, are listed in agonizing detail. The Book of Leviticus then concludes (as it opened) with regulations regarding the upkeep of the Sanctuary, from voluntary tithes, land gifts, firstborn redemption, and the tithes of flocks.

Lev. 25:35-37: “If your kinsman is in straits and has to sell part of his land, his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what the kinsman has sold…If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your sway as though he was a resident alien, let him live by your side…”

            Land was of utmost importance to the Israelites. Further, as we note here, every effort was made to keep the land within the “original” family. (This is, in part, a justification for the Jubilee Year, when land is restored to its original owners.) These rules, according to the text, apply to “your kinsman” or one who has had to sell his land, and is thereby reduced to the status of “resident alien” (who does not own the land he works on). The difference leads to an important question: does the law apply just to our fellow Jews?

           There has been debate about this matter for millenia. The text repeatedly states that there be justice and fairness for the stranger and the resident alien, yet the Sages of the Talmud and decisors through the ages erected walls separating the legal treatment of Jews from gentiles. For example, Jews were not allowed to lend money at interest to fellow Jews (unless it was for commercial purposes, e.g., not to one in “dire straits”) but that restriction did not apply to non-Jews.  

           Other commentators state that prohibitions in business did in fact apply to non-Jews (particularly theft or fraud), since Jews who were engaged in such practice brought disrepute to their fellow Jews by acting improperly. Since we are “chosen” by God to accept His Torah, disrepute of Jews among gentiles amounts to disrepute of God Himself, and a violation of the ideal of “kiddush HaShem” - sanctifying God’s name. As a certain meatpacking company used to say, “We hold ourselves to a Higher standard.”

           And this “higher standard” needs to apply in the United States as well. We wrestle with immigration issues with increasingly xenophobic rhetoric being tossed about. The “resident aliens” of our time are often refugees from terror, gang violence, and war, and many have been brought here as children and have no memory of life outside of the United States. Our tradition demands that we become their advocates, for, in a very real sense, we Jews of America are descendants of strangers in Egypt. We are all descendants of immigrants. In other words (and in the words of this week’s text), we are this era’s “nearest redeemer” to the aliens in our midst.