Let Freedom Ring! (2)
Freedom is not defined by the license to do anything we want. Rather, it is the ability to live in accordance with our core beliefs of our soul. BECHUKOSAI BECHUKOSAI
“Proclaim liberty throughout the land…”
“Proclaim liberty throughout the land…” These immortal words, inscribed on the Liberty Bell, are mentioned in this week’s Torah portion in conjunction with the Jubilee year. The Jewish people were commanded to count seven cycles of seven years. After the last cycle – the fiftieth year – they were to observe the Yovel, or Jubilee year, during which the slaves were to be liberated.
The fact that we read this portion during the period of the year that is prefatory to the upcoming Holiday of Shavuos that occurs on the fiftieth day from Passover, is not a coincidence.
BECHUKOSAI
True Freedom
Without the Torah a Jew cannot be truly free. As our sages state in Pirkei Avos (Ethics of the Fathers):
There is no free person except one who occupies himself with the study of the Torah.
This, our sages derive from a play on words in the phrase “engraved on the tablets.” The Hebrew word for engraved (charus) can also be read (cheirus) which means freedom.
In Chassidic thought this concept is explained as follows:
Freedom is to be measured by the degree that one is able to function in accordance with one’s true desires.
For example: a person, whose greatest ambition and pleasure in life is to express himself through song, is only a free person if he or she has the capacity to develop that talent. Though the person may be incarcerated in the harshest prison, since he or she can pursue and develop his or her core dream of singing – he or she is truly free.
BECHUKOSAI
Conversely, if the same person were to be physically free but not allowed to sing and develop his or her talent, he or she would be considered anything but a free person.
A Jew’s innermost desire is to express himself through Torah. When a Jew is capable of doing so unobstructed, s/he is free in the truest sense of the word.
Another parallel can be drawn from the concept of freedom associated with the Jubilee year and the concept of freedom through Torah.
True Freedom: Universal Freedom
In the verse cited at the beginning of this message: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land,” the Torah continues: “unto all of its inhabitants.” Commentators raise the question as to why the Torah says “unto all of its inhabitants,” when, in reality, only the slaves have to be freed.
One answer provided by commentators is that, in truth, when one Jew is not free, no one is truly free. For freedom – whether physical or spiritual – to be complete it must BECHUKOSAI be all encompassing. Inasmuch as all Jews are one and are compared to different parts of one body, it follows logically that if one part of the body is impaired and cannot perform its function, then the entire person is impaired.
The same can be said about the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. If one Jew were to have been missing from the liberating experience of Sinai, no Jew’s acceptance of the Torah would have been complete.
Why the Need for Moshiach?
Our sages tell us that the experience of the Jubilee year and of Sinai are paradigms for the liberating experience of the future Redemption.
We are now living in an enlightened age. We enjoy more freedom in this country – as well as in most countries of the world – than in any other time in history. Our freedom extends not only to material matters, but – thank G-d –to spiritual opportunities as well. There is hardly a place on earth where a Jew BECHUKOSAI does not have the ability to fully express his Jewishness with pride.
Why then, some ask, do we need the Redemption through Moshiach? What is wrong with the situation the way it is now? And while things are not perfect, why couldn’t we just put our faith in the eventual evolutionary process that will improve our situation as we go into the future?
The answer is that no matter how good is our lot and no matter how far we can progress, we can never reach the point of absolute freedom – to express our innermost divine essence – for absolutely everybody. As long as one Jew remains left behind in a compromised state of either physical or spiritual freedom, none of us are truly free.
Only Moshiach, with his G-d given ability to reveal the innermost divine essence of our souls, can bring true liberty to all of the land and to all of its inhabitants.
BECHUKOSAI
BECHUKOSAI
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Behar-Bechukosai by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
