Week 30: On the Mountain & In My Decrees
In which there's some nice-ish stuff that very few people pay attention to
Imagine if we structured society like it’s organized in this portion
Erasing debt? It’s more Biblical than you thought!
It’s all great!
Except for one thing…
How this works
Parsha (aka “Torah Portion”) - The rest of this email contains this week’s parsha. If you’re struggling to read it, it might be easier to open in Substack itself rather than in your email client.
Chapters - The parsha is divided into chapters. I made these chapter divisions myself. They are based entirely on my personal tastes and have no connection to the actual chapters. Each chapter begins with a title.
Actual Verses - After each chapter title, there’s a little indicating which verses are included in that chapter. To make this as readable as possible, this is not a verse-by-verse translation.
Commentary - You’ll notice a bunch of footnote symbols throughout the translation. Click on those to read my commentary and/or jokes. Click on the number again to jump back to where you were in the text.
Enjoy!
9: On the Mountain
64: In which God gives some questionable agricultural advice
[Leviticus 25:1-25:24]
"Tell the sons of Yisrael," Yehovah said to Moshe on Mount Seenai, "that when I take them where they’re going, they should give the land a fucking Shabbos. For six years, they can grow things in their fields and trim their vineyards and collect all the stuff they make. But the seventh year is a Shabbaty fucking Shabbos for the land. A fucking Shabbos to Yehovah! Don't tend the fields or prune the vineyards. Don't harvest anything the land makes. Don't take the grapes of unpruned vine. It's a fucking Shabbos year for the land.
"You, your servant, your hired help, the settlers living with you, your animals, and the beasts in your land can eat whatever the land grows on its own during the fucking Shabbos year. Everything that grows will be food.
"Count seven fucking Shabbos years, seven years, seven times. After seven fucking Shabbos years, you'll hit 49 years.1
"Blow the blast of the shofar on the tenth day of the seventh month, during the atoning. Bring the shofar everywhere in the land.2 You'll make the 50th year holy and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It's a jubilee for you. All men will return to their property and to their families.3
“The 50th year will be your jubilee. Don't plant or harvest anything that grows on its own or collect any grapes. Eat what grows, because it's a holy jubilee to you from the field.
“Men return to their property in the jubilee year. If you sell to or buy from your neighbor, don't screw him over. Set the price based on the number of years since the Jubilee and the number of years of planting left. Raise and lower the price based on this calculation. Don't screw your neighbor over. And fear his Elohim. Because I am Yehovah, your Elohim.4
"Do my laws and guard my decrees and you'll live safely on the land. If you do, the land will give you fruit and you can eat to satisfaction and live safely there.
"Maybe you’re saying, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we don't plant or collect what grows?'5 Well, guess what! I’ll bless you so hard in the sixth year you’ll have enough food for three year. In the eighth year, you’ll still be eating the old food while you plant and it’ll last you until the ninth year when the new harvest comes.
"No land sale can last forever because all land belongs to me.6 To me, you are strangers and settlers. You'll set all the land you own free.”
65: In which we get into some very technical Jubilee details
[Leviticus 25:25-25:28]
"If your brother is super-poor and sells some of his property, his closest relative will come and redeem it.7 If he has no one to redeem it to and gets rick enough to redeem it, he'll calculate the value based on the jubilee return the extra to the man who sold it to him and return it to his holdings.
"If he doesn't have enough to get it back, it'll stay with the person he sold it to until the Jubilee year, when it'll go back to him.”
66: In which we probably need definitions for all these terms
[Leviticus 25:29-25:34]
"If a man sells a home in a walled city, he can redeem it for a year after selling it. If he doesn't redeem it before the year is over, the person who bought it will keep it forever and ever. It won't return in a Jubilee.
"But houses in village that don’t have surrounding walls are basically fields of the ground. They get redeemed and get returned in the Jubilee.8
"The Levi's houses in their cities can be redeemed forever. If someone redeems from the Levis, the house he bought returns in the Jubilee. This is because the houses of the Levis are their property within the sons of Yisrael. The fields around their cities can't be sold because that is their property forever.”
67: In which we jump back to rules about poor family members
[Leviticus 25:35-25:38]
"If your brother becomes poor and you have to take care of him, strengthen him. He'll live with you like a stranger and a settler. Don't take interest from him or increase his debt. Fear your Elohim.
"Your brother will live with you. Don't give him money with interest or give him food with increases.9
"I am Yehovah, your Elohim, who took you out of Mitzrayim to give you the land of C'naan and be an Elohim to you.”
68: In which, by the way, slavery's ok
[Leviticus 25:39-25:46]
"If your brother becomes poor and sells himself to you, don't give him slave work. Treat him like a paid worker or a stranger. He'll work with you until the jubilee year. Then, he and his sons will leave you and return to his family and ancestral property. Don't sell them like slaves or don't oppress him with hard work because you were all slaves who I took out of Mitzrayim.10 Fear your Elohim.
"However, you can buy slaves and ladyslaves from tribes around you, the sons of the settlers who live with you, and from the families who were born in the land. They'll be your property. You can pass them down to your kids. They'll work for them as an inheritance forever. But don't work your brothers from the sons of Yisrael with grueling labor!”11
69: In which a stranger comes a-callin'
[Leviticus 25:47-25:55]
"If the stranger or the settler with you gets rich and your poor brother is with you, sell him to the stranger, the settler, or someone in the stranger's family. After he's sold, he'll be free. One of his brothers will redeem him. Maybe his uncle or the son of his uncle will redeem him. Or someone else from his family.12 Or he'll get rich again and redeem himself.13
"He'll work for the person who bought him based on the years left until the jubilee year, how much he owes, and the rate of a hired servant.
"If there are a lot of years, he’ll pay his buyer based on that number. If there are just a few years left until the jubilee, he'll use that number for his calculation and buy his freedom. He'll be with him every year like a paid servant. He shouldn't oppress him with grueling work.
"If he doesn't go free in one of these ways, he'll leave in the Jubilee with his sons. Because the sons of Yisrael are slaves to me. They're my slaves who I took out of Mitzrayim.
"I am Yehovah, your Elohim."
70: In which we suddenly get severely off track
[Leviticus 26:1-26:2]
"Don't make any els, idols, or raise any pillars for yourself. Don't put any carved stone in your land to bow down to. I am Yehovah, your Elohim.
"Watch over my fucking shabboses and fear my temple.
"I am Yehovah.”
10: In My Decrees
71: In which God gets kinda scary
[Leviticus 26:3-26:46]
“If you walk in my decrees, guard my commandments, and do them, I'll give you rain at the right time, make the land produce food, and make the trees make fruit. Your threshing will outlast the old stuff and the old food will last until planting time.14 You'll eat your bread until you're satisfied and you'll live securely in your lands. I'll give you peace in the land. When you go to sleep, you won’t be afraid.15 I'll send bad animals out of the land.16 Swords will stay away from you. I'll chase away your enemies. They'll fall by the sword in front of you.
"5 of you will chase away 500. 100 will chase away 10,000. Your enemies will fall by the sword before you. I’m on your side. I'll make you fruitful and make you many. You'll establish my covenant with you. You'll eat old, stored grain and have to take it out to make room for the new grain.17
"I'll have my sanctuary within you. My soul won't hate you.18 I'll walk within you and be your Elohim. And you'll be a nation to me.
"I am Yehovah, your Elohim, who took you out of Mitzrayim where you'd been slaves and broke the bars holding you down so you could walk upright.
"If you don't listen to me and don't do all these commandments, if you throw away my rules and your souls hate my decrees, sullying my covenant, well, this is what I'll do to you. I'll terrorize you, destroy your eyes, and drain your soul. Planting will be pointless because your enemies will eat what grows.19
"I'll put my face to you and you'll run away from your enemies. Your haters will defeat you. You'll run away even though no one's chasing you. And if that doesn't scare you, I'll punish you seven times for your sins. I'll smash your glorious strength, make your skies like iron, and your earth like brass. Your strength will be wasted. I won't let your land produce and trees won't make fruit.
"If you walk against me and don't listen to me, I'll smite you 7 times for every sin.20 I'll send the wild animals of the field after you to take your children, destroy your animals, decimate you, and leave your roads desolate.21
"If you don't get correct to me, if you walk against me, then I'll walk against you and strike you seven times for your sins.22 I'll bring the sword and the vengeance of my covenant to you. I'll gather you in your cities, send plagues, and deliver you to the hands of your enemies. I'll break your bread! Ten women will bake bread in one oven, distribute it by weight, and you'll eat it. But you'll never feel full!23
"If you don't listen to me and you walk against me, I'll walk against you in furious anger and punish you seven times for your sins.24 You'll eat your children. I'll demolish your cult stages, destroy your sun-pillars, and toss your corpses on your idols.25
"My soul will hate you.26
“Your cities will be laid to waste. I'll destroy your sanctuaries. I will NOT smell your good smells. The land will become desolate and the enemies living there will be appalled. I'll disperse you to the world and send the sword after you. The land will be desolate and the cities destroyed.
"Then the land'll get it's fucking Shabboses! When it lies desolate and you're in enemies' lands, the land will definitely rest and get its fucking shabboses.27 All the days it's empty it'll rest like you didn't let it rest on its fucking shabboses when you lived there. Those of you left, I'll make your hearts faint in your enemies' lands. You'll run from the sound of a falling leaf like from a sword! No one will chase you but you'll fall anyway.
"You'll tremble before your brother like he has a sword, even when no one's chasing you.28 You will not have power before your enemies. You'll be lost in the tribes. The lands of your enemies will eat you. Those of you who are left will pine in your iniquity in your enemy's land. They'll even mourn the iniquity of their fathers. They'll confess their own iniquity and that of their fathers in their treachery against me and those who walked against me.
"Even though I'll walk against you and bring you to your enemies, your uncircumcised hearts will finally humble themselves and I'll remember the covenant of Yaakov, Yitzchak, and Avraham. I'll remember them all and remember the land.
“The land will be left alone and get its fucking shabboses. By being empty from them, they'll pay for their iniquity, even though they rejected my decrees and their souls hated my rules.
"But even when they're in the lands of their enemies I won't reject them or hate them completely to break my covenant with them. Because I am Yehovah, their Elohim.
"I'll remember our first covenant, that I brought them out of Mitzrayim in view of the tribes to be their Elohim.
"I am Yehovah."
These are the rules, the decrees, the teachings that Yehovah gave between himself and the sons of Yisrael at Mount Sinai through Moshe's hand.
72: In which we find out exactly how much life is worth
[Leviticus 27:1-27:8]
"Tell the sons of Yisrael,"29 Yehovah said to Moshe, "if a person vows to donate the value of a soul to Yehovah, a male soul 20-60 years old is worth 50 holy silver shekels.30 A female soul is worth 30 shekels.31 A from 5 years to 20 years the is worth 20 shekels and a girls is worth 10 shekels. From a month to 5 years, a boy is worth 4 shekels and a girl is worth 3 silver shekels. From 60 years and up, a man is worth 15 shekels and a woman 10 shekels.
"If he can't afford the value, he stands before the kohein so the kohein can determine his value. Whatever the kohein says he can get, that's what he pays.”
73: In which there are some final rules about sanctification values
[Leviticus 27:9-27:34]
"If he's bringing an animal to sacrifice to Yehovah, anything he gives from it to Yehovah becomes holy. He can't change it or replace, whether he's replacing something good with something bad or vice versa. If he replaces one animal for another, both it and its replacement will be holy.
"If he vows a yucky animal that isn't allowed, he'll bring it to the kohein who will determine its value.32 If he redeems it he'll add one-fifth to its value.
"When a man sanctifies his house to be holy to Yehovah, the kohein will do an evaluation of his house and determine its worth. If the consecrator wants to redeem his house, he'll add one-fifth of silver to the value and it'll be his.
"If a man sanctifies a field from his property to Yehovah, the value will be based on how much it seeds—50 shekel per chomer33 of barley seed. If it's from the Jubilee year and he wants to make it holy, it'll stand by its value. If it's after the Jubilee year, the kohein will calculate the value based on the years left until the Jubilee year and he'll subtract it from the value. If he redeems the sanctified field, he must add one-fifth of its value in silver and it'll be his. If he doesn't redeem it but sells it to another man, it can't be redeemed.
"When the field goes out in the Jubilee, it's holy to Yehovah like a cherem field. It'll be the kohein's property.
"If the field he wants to make holy to Yehovah is one he bought but not from his property fields, the kohein will calculate its value based on the years until the Jubilee and give the value. On that day, it's holy to Yehovah. In the Jubilee year, the field will return to whomever he bought it from, the one whose property it was. Its value will be in the holy shekel—20 gera it'll be in the shekel.
"But a man cannot make a firstborn that's born to Yehovah holy. If it's an ox or a sheep, it's Yehovah's. If it's a yucky animal, it'll be redeemed for its value with one-fifth added. If it's not redeemed, it's sold by its value.
"Anything that man makes cherem to Yehovah from any man, animal, or field he has, don't sell it and don't redeem it. Anything cherem is super holy to yehovah. Any person made cherem can't be redeemed. Kill them right away.34
"Every tenth of the land from the seed of the land from the fruit of the tree to Yehovah, it's holy to Yehovah. If he redeems from his tenth, he must add a fifth to it.
"Every tenth of cattle and sheep, any that go under the rod, the tenth is holy to Yehovah. Don't choose between good and bad and don't replace. If you replace, it and its replacement will be holy and can't be redeemed."
These are the commandments that Yehovah commanded Moshe to the sons of Yisrael in Mount Sinai.35
Math checks out.
That's a lot of places.
Woah.
This sounds very complicated, but also amazing? Property rights revert every 50 years, ensuring no one ever amasses more than their fair share? Where is this “biblical” morality in the modern world?
You are a very perceptive person.
God coming out very strong against property rights.
Like, *AHEM*, you, *AHEM*.
Oh great, now Leviticus is turning into a real estate textbook.
You just said that.
Except for your actual slaves. Do whatever you want to them.
In case you were thinking this book is actually progressive, we still got slavery!
“Those are all the relatives I can remember right now.”
Hey, it could happen.
What more could you ask for?
Even with the lights on and without checking the closet for monsters.
Only good boys allowed. All bad doggies have to get out!
Just kidding. All dogs are good boys.
A lot of grain-related prophecies back then. Never anything like, "You'll always be able to afford a smartphone upgrade as soon as the old one gets slow."
Nice.
Well, this sounds bad.
And apparently say that 7 times too.
No, no! Not the infrastructure.
Three!
Sounds like my life.
Four!
Sheesh, chill out, God!
This is an epic break-up e-mail.
I mean, unless the invaders plant.
A very accurate description of how Jews are.
It sorta felt like that last bit was a decent conclusion but here we go.
So, uh, I guess manhood starts at 20 and not 13, huh?
That is…not cool.
Like Antiques Roadshow!
Whatever that is. Let's say an acre.
Wait, what?
Not a strong ending, Bible.