In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

174  thirty-two Neither Oppress nor Allow Others to Oppress You Parashat Behar (Leviticus 25:1–26:2) Jacob J. Staub When Moses broke the sacred tablets on Sinai, the rich picked the pieces carved with: “adultery” and “kill” and “theft,” the poor got only “No” “No” “No.” —Ilya Kaminsky, “American Tourist,” Dancing in Odessa The queer perspective questions all norms—not only norms of gender role and definition or sexual orientation but all norms. From a queer perspective, norms are human attempts to simplify, classify, and regulate the complexities of reality. Reality, however, is inevitably messier than the categories we impose. There are always exceptions that do not conform to our classifications. The establishment of norms of any kind, therefore, is a process that essentially and inevitably excludes and pushes difference to the periphery, forcing diversity to mold itself into preset categories and condemning that which does not fit in. It is inherently oppressive. Among the most pervasive of normative assumptions that a queer perspective challenges is that hierarchy is natural and inevitable: economic hierarchy, social class distinctions, hierarchies of power. We are encouraged to assume that the state of inequity is built into reality. Some people are always wealthier than others; we can upend the current hierarchy, but when we do, the new order will itself be hierarchically ordered. Parashat Behar calls this assumption into question. It is a powerful text on which we can ground the queer perspective, because it subverts the legitimacy of class distinctions. Leviticus 25, the first chapter of Behar, contains the only regulations in the Torah about land tenure and the rights of landowners to sell or mortgage their land.1 The law of Shemitah, or the sabbatical year, requires that in the seventh year, the land is to have a Sabbath (Lev. 25:2–7). No sowing, reaping, or pruning is permitted. The Torah, however, is not content to explain Shemitah once. It does so three times. The version of this practice described in Exodus 23:10–11 arises out of a concern for the poor, who are given exclusive access to the growth of the land in the sabbatical year. The version in Deuteronomy 15 emphasizes the remission of debts and the freeing of indentured servants. Parashat Behar 175 By contrast, Leviticus 25 seems unconcerned with either of these rationales. Instead , it declares, “In the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of the Lord.” The text is focused on the sanctity of the land itself, and on God’s ownership of the land. We are to let the land rest as a periodic reminder that it does not belong to us. Rather, it is ours temporarily, as an ahuzah, a long-term lease.2 There is significant evidence that the Shemitah year was observed in ancient Israel. There is little evidence, however, for the observance of the ritual of land tenure, the Yovel, the Jubilee year,3 which is mentioned only in Leviticus 25. At the beginning of the fiftieth year, the shofar is sounded, and release (dror) is proclaimed to all the inhabitants of the land,4 all of whom reclaim the right to their ancestral lands. That is, any sale of land is temporary; every fiftieth year (the Jubilee), ownership of the land reverts to its original owner—to the descendants of those who were originally allotted their tribal portions by Joshua at the time of the original conquest of the Land of Israel. “The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me. Throughout the land that you hold, you must provide for the redemption of the land” (Lev. 25:23–24). If poverty has forced you to sell your land, or if you have hired yourself out as an indentured servant, in the Jubilee year, everything is equalized, all inequality rectified. The practice of the Shemitah and Yovel years reflects an extraordinary concern of the Torah to attend to the needs of the poor and to prevent excessive class distinctions . These institutions represent an acknowledgment of economic inequity and a regularly set attempt to ameliorate its consequences. Parashat Behar is a central text in ongoing discussions about the political leanings of Jewish tradition. Contemporary interpreters disagree about whether the consistent tendency of Jews in the modern world to be more liberal than their non-Jewish neighbors can be traced to ancient Jewish teachings and core Jewish values. Some argue that...

Share