“Proclaim liberty throughout the
land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (Leviticus 25:10)
וּקְרָאתֶם
דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ לְכָל יֹשְׁבֶיהָ (ויקרא כה:י)
The inscription exposes the prophetic calling which lies at the center of both nations. Anything but normal, it prescribes the nation a redemptive role. Some consider the inscription the source of a dangerous and blinding national ego-trip, others as a wellspring of an exceptional and inspiring ethical vision. The crack is symbolic: Both countries struggle over the gap between their highest aspirations for themselves and the reality outside. This tension between aspirational and possible, between de jure and de facto, is a drama which unfolds in our weekly portion.
Biblical Context is helpful here. Our verse appears in the most aspirational
of commandments: the mitzvot of Sabbatical year
(Shmitta) and Jubilee (Yovel). The darling commandments of
financial interventionists the world over, this Biblical duo command that
“Six years you shall sow your field, and six years prune your vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof. But on the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath unto God; you shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard.”
After seven cycles of such Sabbaticals, seven times seven:
“you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you; and you shall return every man unto his possession, and return every man unto his family.” (Leviticus 25: 1-10)
A quick refresher: Every seven
years Shmitta calls for a cessation of all agricultural work and a remittance
of all slave ownership (and of all debts, throws in the book of Deuteronomy. This coming year will be a Shmitta, so you might want to think twice before acquiring a slave). Every fifty years a remittance of any real estate transactions ensues, alongside
a second year of agricultural remittance. The Torah commands a “reset” of the
economy requiring each person to “return to Go and collect $200”. If you are unfortunate
enough to have acquired more than the amount of money given you at the
beginning of the game – you must return all properties, houses and hotels to
the bank (Monopoly, the Shmitta version, is bound to be a hit). Shmitta and Yovel
are the touchstone of the Torah’s strategy to fight poverty in an “For the
land shall not be sold in perpetuity for the land is Mine; for you are
strangers and settlers with Me” (ibid 25:23-24).
agrarian society
– as much as it is about creating a theological awareness that human ownership
is counter-redemptive.
Did we mention it’s an aspirational commandment?
So aspirational in fact, that later generations had to work overtime to
tame it. Rabbinic legislators, concerned that Shmitta would undermine the healthy
functioning of the economy – loans would be withheld, neighbors would refrain
from business - pillaged the Sabbatical year of most of its content. To this
day a community’s response to the sabbatical year is a litmus test of its
Jewish engagement: in Israel it creates political uproar. In America it generates
a swarm of new-age initiatives. Most people shrug their shoulders and move on
with their lives… (Snarkiness aside, I’m an admirer and aspiring practitioner
of modern re-interpretations of Shmitta, like this one from Hazon).
The Jubilee did not fair as well. Jews essentially lost count of when the
Jubilee year is somewhere between the first and second temple. No one seemed to shed a tear.
The fate of Shmitta and Yovel, like
the aspirations of Israel, America and many other well meaning projects, fell prey to the social dynamic which one Jewish essayist labeled “Priest
vs. Prophet”.
Ahad haAm (1856-1927, aka Asher
Ginsberg, literally “One of the guys”…), Russian auto-didact, serial newspaper
editor and founder of Cultural Zionism, dedicated his life to translating the
concepts of Jewish religion to a secular age. In his essay, “Priest and Prophet”,
Ahad haAm turns these two obsolete servants of the Lord into timeless leadership
types:
In the early history of any epoch-making
idea there have always been people who have devoted to that idea, and to it
alone, all their powers, physical and spiritual. They make the new idea a
primal force; and the social equilibrium, being a product of the struggle
between all such social forces, is, therefore, bound to be affected by this new
force. But just as no one force ever obtains a complete and absolute victory, so
there is no original idea that can hold its own unless it is carefully guarded
by its adherents.
There are thus two ways of doing service
in the cause of an idea ; and the difference between them is that which in
ancient days distinguished the Priest from the Prophet.
The Prophet is essentially a
one-sided man. A certain moral idea fills his whole being, masters his
every feeling and sensation, engrosses his whole attention. He can only see the
world through the mirror of his idea… His whole life is spent in fighting for
this ideal with all his strength ; for its sake he lays waste his powers,
unsparing of himself, regardless of the conditions of life and the demands
of the general harmony. He remains always a man apart, a narrow-minded extremist,
zealous for his own ideal, and intolerant of every other…
It is otherwise with the Priest.
He appears on the scene at a time when Prophecy has already succeeded in hewing
out a path for its Idea. But the Priest has not the strength to fight
continually against necessity and actuality; his tendency is rather to bow
to the one and come to terms with the other. Instead of clinging to the narrowness
of the Prophet, and demanding of reality what it cannot give, he broadens his
outlook, and takes a wider view of the relation between his Idea and the facts
of life. Not what ought to be, but what can be, is what he seeks. (Ahad
haAm, Priest and Prophet, 1893)
It seems that Shmitta and Yovel, those grand ideas set into motion by the Prophets, was handed off to the Priests, who promptly forgot one and gutted the other… We could play out Ahad haAm’s analysis on a wide variety of social change movements today. Indeed the Priest is easily identifiable as our neighborhood politician, earnestly serving a grand idea, but constantly sacrificing the idea on the altar of reality. The Priest is a master of “the art of the possible”.
But who is the prophet in today’s
terms? Where does tenacious inspiration, battle for a core idea, unflinching
zealotry appear today? “Said Rabbi
Yohanan: Since the destruction of the Temple, Prophecy has been taken
away from prophets and given to babies and fools” (Talmud Bavli, Bava Batra 12b). Babies and
fools? Perhaps religious extremists and a handful of vegans. Does Western society still have a shot at finding prophets?
Greil Marcus, cultural critic best known as the biographer of Dylan, Van Morrison and Elvis, points out that the
American prophetic voice was always a key of American leadership. He highlights
the self-critical assumption guiding such canonized notables as John Winthrop, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. They all believed that “the nation was made to judge itself in a court the country would have to convene over and over again” (Marcus, “The Shape of Things to Come:Prophecy and the American Voice”, pg. 14). But since then the prophetic voice has disappeared from the political
and civic discourse. It re-appears today only in the works of artists, novelists and
filmmakers (Marcus finds it in Phillip Roth, Allen Ginsburg, David Lynch and a
handful of pop-culture icons I hadn’t encountered before…).
What such prophets have is the
ability to judge the nation based on its aspirations for itself in a way that resonates and moves the people. They rang the bell of liberty, letting the inscription on the shell reverberate throughout the
nation – and then challenged that nation to stand up to its promise. “We have
come to our nation’s capital to cash a check” as King put it (pg. 30. In Israel, Meir Ariel rang that bell best of all, see last year's post).
At the end of the day, stuck
between de facto and de jure, de facto will probably win. We need our priests –
God knows I am more of priest than a prophet myself… And yet, as Shmitta rolls
around next year, perhaps we can let it push us in the direction of de jure
once again. As Ahad haAm puts it in his essay – the prophet knows he will not
win, but he pulls nonetheless:
The fundamental idea of the Hebrew
Prophets was the universal dominion of absolute justice. …Justice for them is
beauty, it is goodness, wisdom, truth: without it all these are naught… The
ideal of the Prophets is to pull practical life in the direction of absolute
Justice — an ideal for which there can never be a complete victory. (Ahad
haAm, ibid)
