Fractals are geometric shapes, which can appear in nature, or can be generated by computer graphics, in which a self-repeating pattern can be seen at any scale of magnification. A snail’s spiral, the coil of an unfolding fern leaf, the structure of snowflakes are all natural demonstrations of fractal patterns. The Mandelbrot set is an “infinitely complex two-dimensional fractal shape” that can be generated by a mathematical formula and displayed by computer. If you don’t know what I mean, after Shabbat you can type “Mandelbrot set” into YouTube and watch hours of shapes and colors and see how a pattern can repeat and repeat no matter how long or how far one’s focus zooms in or out.
Sefer Vayikra, which we finished this morning, can be understood to be built on a sort of fractal pattern of ever expanding circles of kedusha – holiness. The opening parshi’ot are devoted to the holiness of the korbanot, the offerings brought to the mishkan on a volunteer or obligatory basis. We next learn about the sanctity of the kohanim and how they were inaugurated into the sacred service and set apart from others. Distinct times of the year, Shabbat and the festivals are given their own status so that sanctuaries in time are created alongside the sanctuary in space.
In the middle of this pattern sits Parashat Kedoshim whose opening demand, kedoshim t’hiyu, “you shall be holy” marks the pinnacle of the book. Holiness is not for the kohanim, holiness is not for the mishkan, holiness is not just when bringing korbanot, observing Shabbat, or even obeying the demands of any mitzvah. Holiness, as we have discussed in the name of the Ramban, is a universal obligation that exists in all times and all places for each one of us to learn from the examples of the 613 mitzvot to act with holiness in the 614th case and the 615th case and the one after that and the one after that.
In Parashat Behar we learn that this is not enough. The distinguishing theme of Parashat Behar is economic life and the Torah’s constraints on ownership and the Torah’s constraints on what we might call freedom of contract.
Three quick examples exemplify this point: The Torah allows the reversal of the sale of any ancestral piece of real estate, an “achuzah,” when any members of the family of the seller raise the money to cover the sale price. The purchaser cannot refuse to resell his purchase and has no incentive to strike a hard bargain with an impoverished seller; the lower the sale price he can negotiate, the easier it will be for the relatives of the seller to raise the money to reclaim their family inheritance.
A loan that is contracted with interest is forbidden and both the borrower and lender violate multiple Torah prohibitions if interest is charged or paid.
אַל־תִּקַּ֤ח מֵֽאִתּוֹ֙ נֶ֣שֶׁךְ וְתַרְבִּ֔ית וְיָרֵ֖אתָ מֵֽאֱ-לֹהֶ֑יךָ וְחֵ֥י אָחִ֖יךָ עִמָּֽךְ׃
And, in our parasha the Torah places constraints on the ability of a Jew to alienate his own labor by selling himself into permanent slavery.
כִּֽי־עֲבָדַ֣י הֵ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־הוֹצֵ֥אתִי אֹתָ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם לֹ֥א יִמָּכְר֖וּ מִמְכֶּ֥רֶת עָֽבֶד׃
The Torah explicitly frames each of these three mitzvot as arising in circumstances in which an impoverished individual is pressured into agreeing to a financial arrangement to which he may consent but which could leave him permanently disadvantaged and exploited. These mitzvot place constraints on what we would call contract rights.
The mitzvot of shemitah and yovel which occupy so many verses in Parashat Behar place constraints on property rights. Together they sketch an economic life that is not merely efficient or voluntary, but holy.
It is not enough for individuals to strive for holiness in our own individual lives and within our own individual households. We need to reach out to others so that our collective life as a community and as a people exhibits holiness in our interpersonal interactions and in the economic and financial ties that bind us to one another.
Modern liberalism often treats consent as morally dispositive. The Torah treats consent as necessary, but not sufficient. But even when two willing partners reach an agreement, the Torah says that an ancestral field can be repurchased for its sale price, a loan with interest is inherently exploitative, and a laborer is not allowed to self-alienate his body by selling himself into perpetual servitude.
We saw in Parashat Behukotai, the second parsha of this morning’s double-parsha, that neglect of shemitah is singled out among mitzvot in the Torah as being a cause of exile.
כׇּל־יְמֵ֥י הׇשַּׁמָּ֖הֿ תִּשְׁבֹּ֑ת אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁ֧ר לֹֽא־שָׁבְתָ֛ה בְּשַׁבְּתֹתֵיכֶ֖ם בְּשִׁבְתְּכֶ֥ם עָלֶֽיהָ׃
All the days that Eretz Yisrael is desolate, it shall observe the rest that it did not observe in your sabbath years while you were dwelling upon it.
Yirmiyahu, Jeremiah, made this same point at the dawn of the exile in Bavel. It lasted seventy years in compensation for the shemitah years that were not observed (II Chronicles 36:21).
Neglecting shemitah brings exile because the purpose of Jewish collective life is…Jewish collective life and Jewish collective life includes our economic interactions.
The greatest and most sustained modern attempt to create economic life on the foundations of the Torah’s mitzvot and the Torah’s ethics was undertaken by generations of Religious Zionist thinkers and Religious Zionist activists. The Orthodox Jewish Socialists who created B’nai Akiva and the Religious Kibbutz movements were motivated by a desire to create Jewish communal life that was free of exploitation.
Rav Joseph Soloveitchik, speaking in Yiddish at a Mizrahi conference in June 1948, just a few weeks after hakamat hamedina, delivered remarks that were recently translated into English and published under the title “Jewish Sovereignty and the Redemption of the Schechina.” Rav Soloveitchik described the exile of the Shechina as the gradual shrinking of Torah’s sphere of influence in human life, from governance, to civil law, and finally to a few meager chapters of ritual practices.
The potential of the State of Israel, for Rav Soloveitchik, and the agenda he set for Religious Zionism, was for God’s very presence to expand through the ability of the Torah to influence Jewish public life and Jewish economic life. If you’ve read Rabbi David Hartman’s writings on modern Israel you can see a version of this same idea. Rav Benny Lau’s Center for Judaism and Society was a more recent attempt to develop Torah that can exert an influence into the public sphere.
That orientation and framing of Religious Zionism has been muted in recent years for reasons too complex to discuss here and, in any event, Jews in the diaspora cannot channel all of our hopes for a sacred public sphere to developments in Israel.
It is therefore imperative for us, here in the diaspora, to find ways for the Torah to exert an influence upon us, not only in our personal spiritual endeavors but in our collective actions and the mutual web of responsibilities with which we bind ourselves.
A century ago Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffmann authored a teshuvah requiring Jewish parents to send their children to public school, on Shabbat, because only the most wealthy families could afford to keep their children home on Shabbat and hire private tutors to make up the missed lessons and it was imperative for there to be a critical mass of Shomer Shabbat children in public school on each Shabbat so that they could serve as positive reinforcements for one another in their commitment not to write.
Our social and economic circumstances are very different but we can still honor the ethos of collective responsibility for Torah study by supporting Jewish education and Torah scholarship, not only with our tuition payments and donations, but through our presence and participation at communal shiurim. Even though you can listen to recorded or broadcast shiurim by the greatest living scholars, attending a shiur, in real life, in our community, creates a public framework that reinforces each of our commitments to Torah and Mitzvot. Shavuot, therefore, is not just an opportunity for individual Kabbalat HaTorah – acceptance of Torah – it is an opportunity for a communal rededication to the centrality of Torah in our communal life.
In prior centuries, Jewish communities levied fines on men who did not show up for weekday tefilot or who talked during Torah reading. Our community has made different choices but we can honor the ethos of collective responsibility, separate from our own personal spiritual proclivities, by taking responsibility to ensure, for example, that no woman ever says mourners kaddish while standing alone in the Ezrat Nashim, or has the experience of being the tenth Jewish adult in a room without a minyan. We can remember that we come together as a congregation for our individual spiritual enlightenment and to support other people as they pursue their religious priorities and needs.
The Jewish calendar always builds in one Shabbat between the end of Vayikra and its frightening curses and Shavuot. And yet, Sefer Vayikra, as a whole, is a perfect preparation for the coming holiday. We each accept the Torah, as individuals, every morning and every evening when we recite Shema. On Shavuot we celebrate the joy and privilege of studying Torah and dedicate ourselves to building a community in which Torah and mitzvot restrain and guide and inspire and encourage us in each and every facet of our individual, interpersonal and communal lives.
The beauty of fractals is revealed when we see patterns repeating at every scale. Sefer Vayikra exhibits that same beauty as the Torah’s insistence and imbuing holiness into the world repeats on the scale of a korban, the service in the mishkan, the Jewish calendar, each of our own personal lives, and finally into the life of a community. The Torah is not satisfied with creating holy individuals. The Torah was given to create sacred communities.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 