Rabbi's Sermons

Shabat Shalom

          Last week while we happily celebrated the Seder Pesach, 133 families in Israel were painfully remembering what freedom means for their relatives still hostages with Hamas… during this week you surely watch the news about dozens of students at the University of Columbia and other campus from different cities in the USA, students that were quite aggressively disrupting the order, confronting the police and getting arrested because of Israel's war against the same terrorist group. Two completely different views regarding the same event: The war against Hamas. I believe the Seder Pesach that deals with freedom, and all those news somehow connects us, not only, with Israel as a country, or national home, but also, with the idea of “Eretz Israel” - the land of Israel, the very soil that tourists usually bring samples of in small containers, to have something from that land in their homes.

          This week we read Parashat - "Acharei Mot", which invites us to examine this connection between us, as Jews, and Eretz Israel, the land itself - the connection between man and the land, man and nature. What does this land mean to us? What is our impact on it? What is our commitment to Eretz Israel? Not to Medinat Israel as a country or political view, but the soil itself, the land.

          Both portions of the Torah Acharei Mot and next week’s Kedoshim, discuss the concepts of holiness extensively. According to Rashi: "holy should be understood as separate"; if so, what distinguishes the people of Israel from other peoples? The answer to this question in our portions is the same: Morality. It is morality that distinguishes us from other peoples, and as we read in this week's texts, moral behavior is precisely that relationship between man and the earth.

          Rashi explains: "If a moral order is not fulfilled, the land will bear fruit elsewhere and not on YOUR land". According to Rashi, our behavior directly affects the land itself, as it will not produce a favorable harvest. That explains the verse in Leviticus 18, when it says: “²⁴ ‘Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you, ²⁵ and the land is defiled. Therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants”. The text's intention seems to be quite literal: the earth itself will vomit us out and refuse to give a harvest.

          But how can we interpret this text? It is not entirely clear. Obviously, it is not possible to understand it Pshat - literally! Is the earth an independent and cognitive entity, which can "punish" us? No. Perhaps, it is God who punishes, making the land not bear fruit? That may be more likely. I want to understand that faith in God, in his existence, in his creative and primordial power, living by high concepts of morals, and being pro-life, is what inspires us, and consequently, leads us to treat the world and nature with respect.

          Many of us, who no longer live in an agricultural society, tend to forget the laws relating to the land. Maybe it is because, in our religious consciousness, they already seem irrelevant. We do not live in the countryside, and as a consequence, all this land issue seems to be, from our perspective, quite unnecessary. An individual who does not relate to and love nature could easily leave their dog’s physiological needs in the street, or can easily throw an empty beer can into the river, or leave plastic bags scattered around an open field. Or throw into the open sea, bottles, plastics, lost fishing nets, garbage...

          Jews living in the cities, far from the countryside, view with certain apathy, and even disinterest, the concept of the year of Shmita, which allows the soil to rest and regenerate itself every seven years. Most of us are not familiar with the Orla law, which permits enjoying the fruits of trees only from their fifth year of growth. We forget that there is a ban on picking fruit trees during a war. Not to mention, the whole range of laws pertaining to Peha, the allocation of a corner of the field, as part of the harvest designated for the poor and needy.

          We refer, in theory, and in ritual texts, to terms, such as: "Eretz Israel", "The national home", and the "Holy Land", but we underestimate this beautiful gift, the gift of the land, and not only THAT specific land - but the entire planet! It is important to know about "Eretz", as a concept of the land, or "Medina", as a country, but that is not the essential point. Our attitude towards the earth, our care for nature, and our understanding that we have an impact on the world we live in are the important things. And they are important, not because of the type, color, or kind of land itself, but because the land represents something deeper and more global. This week's Torah reading teaches us that a person who protects the environment and protects everything around, cares, not only for the KADUR HAARETZ, which in Hebrew means “the planet earth”, but also, for the human beings who inhabit it, and by that, strives to be a moral person.

          Israeli commentator, Nechama Leibowitz, tells us, that in Hebrew, there is an intimate connection between the word - ADAM - "man", and the word - ADAMA - "soil": "Man is responsible in his actions not only for his own destiny, and the fate of his family, not even for the fate of society as a whole, but for the destiny of the whole planet". Therefore, it is our moral obligation, to take care of the earth, just as the first man was ordained to do so, as it is written in Genesis 2: "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it". Later in the Torah, we will read in Leviticus 25: "²³ The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is Mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me”. The land is NOT our property, to do what we want with it. We are guests, truly respected, but ultimately, temporary guests on this land, on this planet, on this life!

          If we respect the nature that surrounds us, and the creatures living in it, if we maintain a moral and just society, which values all that God has given us - and distinguishes us as a moral people - the earth will not "vomit" us. And maybe, the words of the prophet Amos, which we will read in the Haftarah next week, will be fulfilled in us:

“¹³ ‘Behold, the days come,’ saith the Lord, ‘that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. ¹⁴ And I will bring back the captives of My people of Israel (so meaningful today!!), and they shall build the wasted cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. ¹⁵ And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them,’ saith the Lord thy God”.

          I pray, that we shall know days of abundance, an abundance of harvest, an abundance of health, abundance of justice and morality, abundance of love, because then nature will be abundant with us, and we shall live in a true Garden of Eden!

Shabat Shalom!

May 3^rd, 2024

Rabbi David Laor​​​​​​​