I appreciate solid Kohler bathroom sinks as much as the next one, but a solid Torah commentary might be of more value in the world to come. So here’s my commentary on B’har and B’chukotai. Or listen to it!

Shabbat Shalom.

We have a double Torah portion again this week, so our parashahs for this week are “B’har,” which means, “On the Mount,” and “B’chukotai,” which means, “In my statutes.” Together, they cover Leviticus chapters 25 through 27, and close out our time this year in the book of Leviticus.

One of the most important themes that jumped out to me in this week’s portions was the teaching The L-RD gives to Moses on the seven-year cycle for the land, as well as the pattern for the Year of Jubilee. This teaching is especially important in light of the parallel that can be drawn between the Year of Jubilee, and the Counting of the Omer.

The Torah operates on a series of patterns, and these patterns repeat over and over again. One of these patterns is the significance in time of the number seven. For example, there are six days in which the L-RD created the heavens and the earth, and then He established the Shabbat on the seventh day.

This pattern repeats in God’s 7,000-year plan for creation, with there being 2,000 years of desolation, 2,000 years of Torah, 2,000 years of Messiah, and then a 1,000-year Shabbat in which all of creation will rest in the glory of God and the earthly reign of Messiah.

We can detect the presence of this pattern once again in the L-RD’s instructions to Moses for the people as they enter the land of the promise. We read this in:

Leviticus 25:3-7
For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the L-RD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year will be food for you–for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.

So, in this passage we see that the L-RD desires that even the land itself should enjoy rest of its labor, and so he institutes an agricultural Shabbat in which there are six years of production, followed by a year of rest for the land, in which it can produce whatever it produces naturally, but there will be no sowing of seed, tilling of soil or other working of the land.

This was perhaps a difficult teaching for some to accept. Remember that the Israelites were a highly agriculture-oriented society at this time; to take an entire year off from the main source of food and income would be quite a challenge to the faith of some. Yet the L-RD does offer some reassurances in this respect.

We read this in:

Leviticus 25:18-22
“‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

So, we can see here that the L-RD promised a blessing beyond reasonable expectations and natural results if they act in obedience to His commands regarding offering the Land its part in the Shabbats of the L-RD. Their harvests in the sixth year will triple to consistently provide for them until the land’s Shabbat is over, and harvests are once again gathered.

So, there should be no reason for them to worry, right? The L-RD will provide for them richly, even in the Land’s year of rest. All they need to do is trust God and obey His instructions.

In addition to the Shabbats every seven years, however, the L-RD institutes an additional Shabbat that is to follow the seventh land Shabbat – a time known as the Year of Jubilee. Here is what we read of this time in:

Leviticus 25:8-13
Count off seven Sabbaths of years–seven times seven years–so that the seven Sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.

This year of Jubilee goes beyond blessing the land, as we can see, to blessing the people as well. In the year of Jubilee, all debts are wiped out. The price of land is based on the number of years to the next Jubilee, and once a Jubilee arrives, all debts are canceled. Abuse of the Jubilee system is built into the command with a prohibition against taking unfair advantage of each other in light of it, a command that falls equally on both the seller and the buyer, the debtor and the debt-holder.

Yet whether this system of land Shabbats and Years of Jubilee was a sound financial system, whether they were ever actually observed as commanded or not, is less important to our study today than the parallel between the Year of Jubilee and the Counting of the Omer.

As Stan taught last week, the Feast of First Fruits is held on the first day of the week, the day after the first regular Shabbat following the Passover. We then see that to reach Shavuot, we count off seven regular Shabbats after the Feast of First Fruits, which is forty-nine days long, and then immediately following the seventh Shabbat comes the Feast of Shavuot.

The same pattern is followed with the Year of Jubilee; seven times seven years are counted off, forty-nine years in all, immediately followed by a Year of Jubilee in the fiftieth year. The only difference is that with the counting of the Omer, we’re dealing with days; and with the year of Jubilee, we’re dealing with years.

So, what is the connection between the Counting of the Omer and the Year of Jubilee? The unifying themes, I believe, are completion and forgiveness. The Counting of the Omer is symbolic of completion, in that it connects the first-fruits of the barley harvest to the first-fruits of the wheat harvest. In the New Covenant gospels, First-Fruits begins with the resurrection of the Messiah Yeshua, and is completed in the giving of the Holy Spirit in the second chapter of Acts. Resurrection completes the promise and sets us free from sin; the giving of the Holy Spirit empowers us to move out into our new life, led by the voice of God, rather than “following after our own eyes, after which we used to go astray.”

This pattern of sevens is reflected in Yeshua’s teachings.

Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Yeshua said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

With this command of forgiveness up to seventy times seven, we can apply our insight and understanding to this passage, knowing that this would include not only 490 years – 490 Yom Kippurs – but 10 Years of Jubilee, a time when all debts are cancelled. What that means is to forgive someone so completely that you’ll never live to see that forgiveness expire. Our forgiveness of others should last forever, just as we want the L-RD to forgive us.

Immediately following this exchange with Peter, Yeshua goes on to tell the story of the servant who owed the king more than he could ever repay, and who was forgiven his debt by the king; but when he was owed a small amount by his fellow servant, he did not forgive that debt but had the man jailed. When the king found this out, he rescinded his forgiveness of the first man’s debt. The parable concludes in:

Matthew 18:33-35
So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

Understanding the meaning and significance of the Year of Jubilee is key to unlocking the full meaning of this parable; when practiced as commanded, the Year of Jubilee is indeed a command to ensure that no one suffers poverty without a hope for release from their debt; that no one goes through life without the hope of forgiveness from what they owe, and a fresh start.

In the same way that we count the Omer, or the Shabbats of the land leading to a Year of Jubilee, so too are we to practice forgiveness and rejoice in what we have been forgiven. Yeshua is not alone in showing the importance to God this has, because stern warnings are given to the children of Israel if they fail to keep these land Shabbats and Years of Jubilee. We read this in:

Leviticus 26:33-34, 40-42
I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths … But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers–their treachery against me and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies–then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

Forgiveness is the very nature of the L-RD, something He even revealed to Moses when He showed him His glory, as we studied several weeks ago. The reason the L-RD and even Messiah Yeshua speak so harshly about those who won’t obey his commands and forgive others is that without living out the forgiveness we have received, we are painting a false picture of the nature of God.

So it is this theme of forgiveness that reveals the meaning behind the Year of Jubilee and helps us to understand the nature of God better, so we can be a better reflection of Him to others in our daily lives.

Shabbat Shalom.

Tags: B'chukotai, B'har, Kohler bathroom sinks, Torah commentary