Torah Portion for 07/29/2023

In Leviticus 25, God tells Moses to instruct the Israelites that every seventh year, the land must rest and not be cultivated. This year of rest, known as the Sabbath of the land, is a time for everyone, including servants and animals, to rest. After seven cycles of seven years, the 50th year is designated as the Year of Jubilee. During this year, all land and possessions are returned to their original owners. God also commands the Israelites not to exploit one another in business transactions and to help their poor brothers. The land is seen as belonging to God, and the Israelites are merely temporary residents. Leviticus, chapter 25, verses 1-38. And Yahweh spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the children of Yisrael, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall observe a Sabbath to Yahweh. Six years you sow your field, and six years you prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit, but in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest. A Sabbath to Yahweh. Do not sow your field, and do not prune your vineyard. Do not reap what grows of its own of your harvest, and do not gather the grapes of your unpruned vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. And the Sabbath of the land shall be to you for food, for you and your servant, and for your female servant, and your hired servant, and for the stranger who sojourns with you, and for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land. All its crops are for food. And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, and the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. You shall then sound a shofar sound on the tenth day of the seventh new moon, on Yom HaKippurim calls a shofar to sound through all your land. You shall set the fiftieth year apart, and proclaim relief throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It is a Yovel for you. And each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you return to his clan. The fiftieth year is a Yovel to you. You do not sow nor reap what grows of its own, nor gather from its unpruned vine. It is a Yovel, it is set apart to you. Take from the field its crops. In the year of this Yovel, let each one of you return to his possession. And when you sell whatever to your neighbor, or buy from the hand of your neighbor, do not exploit one another. According to the number of years after the Yovel you buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he sells to you. According to the greater number of years you increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you diminish its price, because he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops. And do not oppress one another, but you shall fear your Elohim. For I am Yahweh your Elohim, and you shall do my laws, and guard my right rulings, and shall do them. And you shall dwell in the land in safety, and the land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat to satisfaction, and shall dwell there in safety. And since you might say, What do we eat in the seventh year, since we do not sow nor gather in our crops? Therefore I have commanded my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth the crop for three years. And you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat of the old crop until the ninth year. Eat of the old until its crop comes in. And the land is not to be sold beyond reclaim. For the land is mine, for you are sojourners and settlers with me. And provide a redemption for the land, and all the land of your possession. When your brother becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and his redeemer, a close relative, comes to redeem it, then he shall redeem what his brother sold. And when the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it, then let him count the years since it sell, and return the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, that he shall return to his possession. And if his hand has not found enough to give back to him, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the year of Yovel, and it shall be released in the year Yovel, and he shall return to his possession. And when a man sells a house in a walled city, then his right of redemption shall be at the end of the year after it is sold, his right of redemption lasts a year. But if it is not redeemed within a complete year, then the house in the walled city shall be established beyond reclaim to the buyer of it throughout his generations. It is not released in the Yovel. The houses of villages, however, which have no wall around them, are reckoned as the field of the country, a right of redemption belongs to it, and they are released in the Yovel. As for the cities of the Levites, and the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites have a right of redemption for ever. And that which is redeemed from the Levites, both the sale of a house, and the city of his possession, shall be released in the year of Yovel, because the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession in the midst of the children of Israel. But the field of the open land of their cities is not sold, for it is their everlasting possession. And when your brother becomes poor, and his hand has failed with you, then you shall strengthen him, and he shall live with you like a stranger or a sojourner. Take no interest from him or profit, but you shall fear your Elohim, and your brother shall live with you. Do not lend him silver on interest, and do not lend him your food for profit. I am Yahweh your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Mitzrayim, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your Elohim. Amen. Amen.