Parashat B'Har
"And the Lord spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai saying... "When you come the land that I give to you, and you settle the land..."
Parashat B'har follows this with the laws of the shmitta and jubilee years. The shmitta and jubilee are called a Shabbat as a rest for the land and a release for properties and for people. B'har also includes a guide to attitudes and behaviours as to how we treat each other. It ends with a reminder that we are not to make idols or images to exalt, but to keep all God's shabbatot, and worship in God's legitimate sanctuary.
We do this because the Lord brought us out of Egypt. Multiple times we are reminded of our experiences with slavery and with redemption. It is the reason for our existence as a people, and the reason for our required actions. Forever we are to remember as a people our collective experience of oppression. We are to learn from it, and then strive to be better. Through this endeavour we aim to be Ohr Hagoyim, a light among the nations.
To be Ohr Hagoyim has seemingly come naturally to Jews and the Jewish people throughout history. The influence of Jews in history has been noted by historians, novelists, philosophers, and others. Mark Twain, in 1897, wrote the following words, which still ring true today.
"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.
His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.
The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"
This week we celebrated Israel's 63rd birthday. We mourned those who died for our existence, and then, partied hard with the knowledge that Israel continues to be Ohr Hagoyim. At the Israeli Consulate Yom HaAtzmaut celebration Amir Gissim, Israel's Consul to Canada, Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment, and a representative from Hebrew University announced even more cooperation between Israel and Canada in the areas of medicine, of environmental science, and in the path of peace. In the next year a fleet of fully electric cars will roll across Israel to be followed up in the following year here in Ontario.
As we count the days to Shavuot and our opportunity to once again stand upon the mountain looking out, we again have the opportunity to "be the change we want to see in the world."* Let us embrace it.
Shabbat shalom
*Mahatma Ghandi
