By Toviah Botwinik

Parshat Behar (בהר - ויקרא 25:1-26:2) dictates the laws of shemita (שמיתה), the sabbatical year and tells some interesting laws surrounding land ownership (in and out of walled cities). As many of you know, we are in the shmita year right now, and there have been many great peulot (פעולות) run this year and many conversations had about what this period of rest (kind of like a shabat (שבת) for years) means to us. So I won’t bore ya’ll with more shemita talk, instead I’ll talk about some of the land ownership laws:

Essentially, Moshe (משה) is told to tell the people of some laws regarding the return of land through a “redemption” or during the jubilee (יובל) year (the year after the 7th shemita year, aka shemita of shemita1). Two years or later, after a person sells land to another, they may redeem that land by paying the cost of the land X / the number of years until the next jubilee year Y. This allows a person to reclaim land if they need it back, etc. An additional safety net is set in place, the jubilee year!!

During the jubilee year, all land is returned to its original owner. This deviates from other Jewish law on property, which has clearly defined characteristics for ownership, in that God says, “Because the Land belongs to Me; you are strangers and residents with Me.” While all things are created by God, humans are allowed ownership, but land is an exception.

tl;dr/i don’t care about the Jewish part:

I think that this land ownership thing is still something to think about. Though not many of us have the access to be able to buy and sell plots of land like was done back in Biblical times,land ownership still affects so many parts of our lives:

1. Leasing apartments, buying houses (duh)

2.Israeli-Palestinian conflict-- unlike everything else, it’s really not about oil!

3. The JNF (קק”ל) operates by basically legally buying land (sometimes contested)

4. American Indian and First Nations social justice issues in NA

5. Gentrification

I kind of like the idea that God (or Mother Nature) is the true owner of land, and that that’s something nobody can truly own.

Here's a comic that's nice and a little dark, too.