B’Har - Bechukotai
Lev. 25:1 – 27:34
Précis: 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. The parasha continues with the prohibition against unlimited slavery, as well as the rules for the treatment of those who are slaves.
Bechukotai, the final parasha in Vayikra, begins with a statement promising blessings 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 Mishkan, from voluntary tithes, land gifts, firstborn redemption, and tithes of flocks.
Lev. 26:10 “You shall eat old grain stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make room for the new.”
Among the blessings found at the beginning of Bechukotai we find this phrase, telling us that we will need to eat the stored grain in order to make room for the new harvest. Rashi tells us that the threshing floors will be full, but the old storehouses will also be full, and we must eat the old grain for there to be sufficient space for the new harvest. In other words, we need to clear out the old to make way for the new.
Rabbi Esther L. Lederman has suggested (Reform Voices of Torah, 5/23/22) that the idea of eliminating the old to make room for the new also applies to our possessions, and perhaps more significantly, to changes we seek to make in the way we live our lives. We need to let go of the old (be they habits or doing things just because that’s the way we’ve always done them) and embrace the new.
In a world which many of us live in today, we are seeking greater racial equality, diversity, and inclusion of those we previously called “the other.” What “old habits” need to be discarded to leave space for new ideas and new behaviors?
We have an ideal way of “making room” for the new: Shabbat. When we sing at the Shabbat table together, and we bless the angels who look to our safety and security, we can also ask “what am I open to? What possibilities await?” It is perhaps time to make space for the new grain.
