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שבת שלום - פרשת בהר
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Video Shiur
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Click play to watch the
video shiur by Rav Meir Goldvitch
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News and Notes
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This Shabbat, the entire Yeshiva travels to the Old City of Jerusalem for our annual Old City Shabbaton in preparation for Yom Yerushalayim. Apart from davening at the Kotel and some of the most well- known synagogues in Jerusalem, our students will hear the famous "Guru Gil" speak, and hear a shiur from Rav Nachman Kahane. Additionally, we will tour Mea Shearim on Friday night, and participate in one of the chassidic "tisches" that take place in that neighborhood. We thank Rav Aftel and Rav Katz and their families for joining us on what promises to be a memorable and meaningful Shabbat.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Yeshiva took a trip to a techelet factory near Maaleh Adumim. Along with witnessing the process of making techelet, our students learned about the modern attempts to discover the "real" techelet, and the positive and negative sides to each opinion.
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The Free and Fair Market
By Rabbi Pesach Wolicki
"You shall sanctify the year of the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for all of its inhabitants; it shall be for you a jubilee and each man shall return to his ancestral land and each man shall return to his family." (Vayikra 25:8,10)
The Torah commands that all land returns to its original owner upon the arrival of the jubilee year - once every fifty years. In effect, all land purchases in Israel are to be leases calculated according to the remaining years until the next jubilee.
The original owner sold his land. He probably experienced some kind of financial hardship that led him to sell the ancestral plot passed down to him through the generations leading back to the original distribution of the land in the days of Joshua. Upon the arrival of the jubilee year he regains ownership and control of his land. He gets a fresh start.
Free of charge, he is now able to work the land, mortgage it, sell it until the following jubilee year; he can use this valuable asset to generate wealth.
At first glance, the redistribution of land to its original owners appears to be consistent with socialist policies of redistribution of wealth familiar to us in modern times. The ability of certain individuals to build empires by continually acquiring more and more land is obviously curtailed. At the same time, the impoverished who have lost everything get a fresh start.
A closer look reveals the jubilee system to be different from modern redistributionist policies in a number of important ways.
One of the main complaints against policies that call for a redistribution of wealth is that it is not fair that people do not have control over the fruits of their labors. Why should someone who worked hard to make a living be forced to support someone who was too lazy to work. It is unfair.
On the other hand, proponents of redistribution argue that without redistribution, there is scarcely a chance for the poorer elements in society to get on their feet. Once they have no significant assets and are at the mercy of the wealthy, there is no way out.
The jubilee system solves for both of these concerns. The 20th century French economist Bertrand de Jouvenel, in his Ethics of Redistribution, points out that the Biblical jubilee system does not advocate a redistribution of product or profit. Rather, it is a redistribution of resources. As such, the injustice of taking profit from those who worked for it and giving to those who did not is absent. On the other hand, by redistributing valuable resources - land - every citizen is given a fair chance to make the most of his assets and begin to build independent wealth.
There are many more economic lessons to be gleaned from the Torah's jubilee system. A full treatment is beyond the scope of this dvar Torah.
The Torah believes in fairness and freedom. In admittedly very simplistic terms, modern socialism advocates fairness at the expense of freedom. Unbridled free market capitalism advocates freedom at the expense of fairness. The Torah's economic system treats all citizens as equals while rewarding those who worked hard with the full fruits of their labors.
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