Another week passed by, and another horrific shooting occurred in the United States. Like Pittsburgh, and Charlottesville before, this time it was Buffalo. The perpetrator is an avowed racist who included a 180-page manifesto “justifying” his actions with a mix of “Replacement Theory” conspiracy and white paranoia (otherwise known as “white supremacy”) he acquired from Tucker Carleson, QAnon, and assorted hate forums like 4Chan. Over the course of ingesting “Replacement Theory”, white paranoia, and racism for these past several years, a young man’s idea of citizenship, community, democracy, and sacred words of a liberal democracy found in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution became twisted and perverted. Instead of viewing liberal democracy as aspirational affording all people with opportunities for “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” he now saw liberal democracy as a dystopian place where a Jewish Kabal has organized and manipulated people of color to replace Christian white men and their traditional hierarchy.
This week we read from Parsha of Behar. For most of Vayikra (Leviticus), we learned how the Kohen Gadol, the individual, and a community attains holiness both in terms of interpersonal relationships and with God. B’nai Israel had been instructed to create “Holy” Time in terms of the seasons, and “Holy” spaces in terms of their proximity to the Mishkan. Now we read about the laws in which we acknowledge the holiness of Eretz Canaan Israel. We learn that the Jubilee is similar to Shemitta except on a grander scale, leaving the land to lie fallow for a year while it rests. We learn about the Yovel, the Jubilee year, and all that it entails in terms of our behavior.
During the discussion of the Sabbatical year, we read: V’Kidashtem Eit Shat HaChamishim Shana Ukratem Dror Ba’Aretz L’chol Yoshveha Yovel Hi Tiheyeh Lachem V’Shavtem Ish El Achuzato V’Ish el Mishpachto Tashuvu – You shall sanctify the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants; it shall be the Jubilee Year for you, each of you shall return to his ancestral heritage and each of you shall return to his family Lev 25:10. The context of this verse is clear. During the 50-year cycle, whether the indentured servant has served the usual minimum of six years or not, all indentured servants are to be freed. Everyone returns to their tribal land of origin and everything is then, according to modern parlance, “rebooted”. The Hebrew word for “freedom” that appears in the verse is Dror. The more common Hebrew word for “freedom” is “ChoFeSh.” In Ex. 21:2 Ki Tikneh Eved Ivri Shesh Shanim Ya’avod U’Vashviit Yeitzei LaChofshi Chinam If you buy a Jewish servant, he shall work for six years; and in the seventh, he shall go free (LaChofshi), for no charge. The word Dror, in the context of “freedom,” appears once in the entire Torah in this context, “Proclaim Liberty throughout the land…” The word Dror appears in one other place in an apparently unrelated context. In Ex. 30:23 Dror appears as a term for “pure myrrh”. Why would the Torah use a less common word Dror that has another seemingly unrelated meaning as opposed to the more common word Chofshi (Free/freedom) to describe the declaration of Jubilee?
Certainly, the word “Freedom” is more commonly used than “Liberty”. However, when Patrick Henry made his famous statement, he used the word “Liberty”. “Give me Liberty or give me death”. The Declaration of Independence speaks of “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. The political theorist Hanna Fenichel Pitkin observed that liberty implies ”a network of restraint and order”, hence its use by America’s Founding Fathers in its founding documents and the Liberty Bell.“Proclaim Liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants thereof". Lev 25:10”. R’ Avraham Bedersi, a late 13th century French Rabbi, explained that both terms Chofesh (Freedom) and Dror (Liberty) are the opposite of bondage. However, Dror (Liberty) denotes clarity and purity, without any contaminates like "pure Myrrh". It is not accidental that the Torah uses a word that is the opposite of bondage but connotes “pure” freedom. Throughout the book of Leviticus, the overarching themes have been purity and holiness.
So it would make sense that Dror would connote the holiest or purest sense of the concept of Freedom. R’Avraham Bedersi suggests that Chofesh (freedom) implies the mitigation of slavery, or “freedom from”. Whereas Dror (Liberty) suggests the purest form of freedom, a holy sense of freedom that only exists within the laws and restraints presented in Torah, in other words, a “freedom for” a more sacred purpose. Indeed, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, et al, understood Rabbi Bedarsi’s comments. Liberty” is a Godly concept. Liberty invokes holiness and therefore something to which those that live in a democracy ought to aspire. “Declaring Liberty throughout the land”, is an aspirational call for all the inhabitants of the land to live lives of holiness. Declaring a Jewish Cabal that plans and organizes people of color to replace white Christian men perverts and twists the very words that appear on the Liberty Bell.
Peace,
Rav Yitz
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