Weekly Torah Lesson
Parasha: b’Har On the Mountain
Torah: Vay Ikra 25:1-26:2
More than sixty years ago, my father bought some land to build a home. Many years later, while looking at some of his personal documents, our family discovered that the land which my father believed that he was purchasing was actually being leased to him for fifty years.
A couple of years ago, a large apartment complex, located less than a mile from our home, was notified that their “land lease” wasn’t going to be renewed. They are in the process of evacuating the properties that are situated on “leased” land.
When I was reading this week’s Torah portion, I realized that the concept of a “land lease” isn’t anything new. The rules governing a land lease are clearly stated for us to read and learn.
23 The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land. 25 If your brother be waxen poor, and has sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. 26 And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it; 27 Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it; that he may return to his possession. 28 But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that has bought it until the year of Yovel: and in the Yovel it shall go out, and he shall return to his possession. 29 And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it. 30 And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the Yovel. 31 But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the Yovel. 32 Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. 33 And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of Yovel: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. 34 But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold (VaYikra 25:23-34)
Technically Israel did not receive “perpetual ownership” of the land of Israel. Their ability to live on the land was extremely conditional, based on their obedience to the terms of their covenant with Avinu.
I know of four different times that Israel was taken off the land because of their behavior.
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