Opening the Locks

This week we read two Torah portions, Behar, or “on the mountain,” and Bechukotai, or “my decrees.” Behar gives us the laws for the Sabbath of the land, each seven years, and for the Jubilee, every 50th year. At the Jubilee, the land was to return to its original, ancestral owner, slaves were freed, and liberty was proclaimed for all inhabitants. In this portion we are told that the land belongs to God and that we belong to God. Then there are laws to prevent poverty, such as the necessity to buy back land that was sold out of dire economic need, and the responsibility to help a relative who becomes impoverished.
This portion has a number of teachings about social justice. One statement, “You shall not aggrieve each other,” or in another translation, “you shall not wrong each other,” refers specifically to the sale of land proportional to the number of crop years; but of course, you shall not wrong one another, has much wider implications. Another statement is, “If your brother becomes impoverished and his means falter in your proximity, you shall strengthen him, proselyte or resident, so that he can live with you.” And then two more regulations are promulgated, asking us to redeem land or a contract of indentured servitude for relatives in need.
The portrait being painted here is a model society in which all members are responsible for each other. And this idea is reinforced by the use of the words, “with you, imach”, mentioned thirteen times in this portion, which affirm the idea that the poor are part of us. In the very first Torah portion, B’reisheet, Cain has just killed Abel. God asks Cain where Abel is and Cain retorts, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” It is a rhetorical question for Cain, but it demonstrates an enduring truth. The correct answer, of course is, yes, we are our brother’s and sister’s keepers. We are all responsible for each other. This is not just an idea or even an imperative. It is a fact. The Chassidic master Rabbi Noam Elimelech of Lizensk wrote, “When the Blessed God created the world, in God’s goodness The Eternal created pipelines that carry shefa, an abundance of blessings, to fulfill human needs. The blessings of shefa are ceaseless, but when we fall from our spiritual level and lack trust in our Creator, who is the true Provider, who supports and sustains everything in never-ending abundance, such a person causes a blemish in the higher worlds and with impure thoughts, that is, lack of faith and trust in God. This weakens the power of the heavenly hosts above, it disrupts the shefa. God then has to re-command or reconnect the shefa of blessings anew so that it can flow again as it did previously since the time of creation.” This quotation tells us that it is by the flow of energy from God to us that we live. We know that God is existence, which means we all live within God. So blessings should just naturally come to us. But we don’t usually perceive that they do. What we experience is that we live, breathe, eat, and work: that there are baseline blessings, the miracles we call Nature, but that there are further blessings that are denied to us. The Torah gives us certain guidelines for the way we are to treat each other, that we understand as commandments. But really they are Keys, allowing us to unlock the flow of blessings.
When we touch another person, when we help that person; when we are honest and share God’s money with them, that we regard as our money, or God’s food, that we regard as our food, we create an arc between us and them. It may simply be an arc of love or it may be an arc of love plus something tangible, but when we make that connection, then God completes the circle by being present between us: whenever our love is present; whenever our generosity is present, whenever or caring is present. The Mussar literature, Living Mussar Every Day, by Rabbi Zvi Miller, quotes the sage Chafetz Chayim in saying that, “the truth is we are never alone, we have the most loving Parent, the Master of Power and Wealth who is always there to help us.” In the Torah, God is constantly modeling behavior for us. By giving to us, the Eternal shows us that our giving to others is the mechanism by which all giving is regulated. When we create a blockage, through anger, fear, or selfishness, the interdependence of energy flow is stopped. The energy becomes diverted. Love can be expressed as hate or anger. Plenty cannot reach us and blessings go to waste. The techniques to unlock blessings are fundamental to our interdependence as part of God. If we act as though we are in isolation, which is untrue, we will become isolated. If we act as though you and I are connected, which is true, we will be linked back to God through the channels of love energy we create. The world is designed to promote the flow of blessings by our opening the channels of relationship. The Torah holds the keys that unlock the flow of abundance; and we can, if we choose, open the locks.