Parsha B'har - B'chukotai

​By Richard Sison | 2018

Introduction

B'har: This speaks about the importance of the sabbath rest of lands and also the observance of Jubilee, which is a hope of the people.

B'chukotai: The parsha addresses blessings for obeying the law, curses for disobeying it.

Broadcast the New Beginning. Jubilee is the year at the end of seven cycles of shemita (sabbatical years), and according to Biblical regulations had a special impact on the ownership and management of land in the Land of Israel.

The regulation of Jubilee deals largely with land, property, and property rights. According to Leviticus, bond-servants and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of G-d would be particularly manifest. Leviticus 25:8-13 Observe Jubilee (Lev 25:8-55)

“‘You are to count seven Shabbats of years, seven times seven years, that is, forty-nine years. Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, on Yom-Kippur, you are to sound a blast on the shofar; you are to sound the shofar all through your land; and you are to consecrate the fiftieth year, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a yovel for you; you will return everyone to the land he owns, and everyone is to return to his family. That fiftieth year will be a yovel for you; in that year you are not to sow, harvest what grows by itself or gather the grapes of untended vines; because it is a yovel. It will be holy for you; whatever the fields produce will be food for all of you. In this year of yovel, every one of you is to return to the land he owns.
​
Leviticus 25:8-13

The message