Behar, בְּהַר  "On the Mount"  Leviticus 25:1-26:2

From The Mountain

Poetic notes on parashat Behar*

Adam,

where are you?

Cursed is the ground on account of you

Cursed are the stones

Cursed are hills and plains

Yet a time of hope is coming

when the land of a holy people 

will rest from your curse

The seventh year is coming

when the land will begin to breath

The land of God will breath deeply with love

And in the fiftieth year the land will sing

The land of God will sing from the heart of love

For the holy people who came down

from the mountain of G-d

like a young bride, will come of age

Then the branches of the tree of life

will be heavy with fruit

In the fiftieth year the bride shall dance 

In the land of God the bride shall dance 

the dance of eternal salvation!

For her, all the rocks of the land will sing!

Do not pick the unripe fruit

Do not keep the shell with the fruit

Although the day is small and dark,

it shall become expansive

That day itself will be the source of light

The sun and stars will pale in the light of that day,

One day is the culmination of Sabbath years,

the completion of the cycle of love

In the evening of the very last year,

empirical logic will stand as a prosecutor

The wisdom of this world

will be loud and boisterous and speak

against the holy people 

who come down from the mountain

"How far you have fallen!" the prosecutor will accuse

"How you have been trampled in the street!

How your books and your children have been burned!

How will a despised and downtrodden nation

lead the world to freedom?"

That very hour of evening will be the final year!

The fruit shall immediately ripen on the vine!

On that day God will raise up the holy ones,

the ones he brought down from the mountain

to live in his land,

and they will live as a nation of priests in His sight

Joseph made slave masters into slaves

in order to set them also free

The nations have been bought and sold

Their souls have been weighed with silver and gold

In the liberation of Israel the very stars are set free

G-d will be known in His Land

He will anoint His people with revelation,

every elder and every child

Then the Land of Israel will be heaven

The dead in the Land will stand 

They will share their Torah among the living

Understanding will come like rain

The flow of the knowledge of God

will water the earth like the heavens fill the seas

The hatred among peoples will vanish

Envy and anger of souls shall cease

Redeem the Israelites today!

Do the 'haves' have the right to limit 

the rights of the 'have nots'?

Should HaShem's children that are owners 

fence off HaShem's children 

who are ownerless in this world from their rights?

Do the rights of This World 

entail the right to limit the rights of the World To Come?

Can the rights of the child, 

limit the rights of the parents? 

Or the parents the right of the child?

In the case of Shmitta

the true owner is the ownerless

Let brother redeem brother

and sister redeem sister

and stranger redeem stranger!

What God redeems 

let all souls of Adam learn also to redeem!

For G-d has said:

The people who came down from the mountain are Mine

who I have redeemed out of Egypt,

to correct Adam from the way of destruction!

Idolize no longer the brazen face of Adam upon the earth

Dream no more the dreams of fallen angels

For the Sabbath of God will be your mansion

Its everlasting hours will be your Sanctuary, 

a place for your deepest hope to live,

and where your deepest love will never die!