This week we read how every fifty years, at the beginning of the Jubilee year all land would revert to its original owners. This meant that when selling land during the time when the Jubilee years were in action one could actually only lease the land for as many years were left till the end of the fifty year cycle. The verse explains, “the land shall not be sold in perpetuity (for ever!) for the land is Mine; for you are sojourners (Ger) and residents (toshav) with Me”.
These two expressions “sojourners” and “residents” are contradictory! Either we are a “ger”, just passing through or we have settled here to stay as a “toshav” – the root of the word being “shav” – to sit, to stay. We find that when Avraham pleaded with King Efron to sell him a piece of land to bury his wife Soroh he says, “ger v’toshav” – I am an alien and a resident among you”. Rashi explains, “I am from somewhere else, a foreign land and therefore as a foreigner I am prepared to pay for the burial plot, but if you do not wish to sell me the land than I will exercise my rights as a resident because Hashem has said, “to your offspring I will give this land”. The two terms are mutually exclusive and cannot simultaneously apply to one individual – what Avraham was saying was that he would either act as a “ger” or a “toshav”.
How then do we understand the verse in this week’s Parshah – in what way, are we both described as sojourners and residents on the face of this world? The Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva, Rav Gurwicz explains that the verse is describing the two aspects that make up man – body and soul. Our bodies are but sojourners, we are here for our allotted time. Our souls however are residents – they are permanent fixtures in the world. As Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier puts it, “You are a spiritual being, temporarily having a physical experience!”
This most basic idea is central to anything that Judaism preaches. We are here for a purpose, in the famous words of the Mishnah In Ethics Of Our Fathers we are taught, “Rabbi Yaakov said: this world is like a lobby before the World to Come; prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall”. The difficulty lies in living our lives with this concept at the forefront of our minds. Not being able to sell land permanently was supposed to drive home this message that our time on this world is but a fleeting moment – we [read: our physical bodies] are just visitors here.
This is why we call someone who is ignorant an “am Ha’aretz”. If we do not adjust our lives though Torah and Mitzvahs to prepare for the banquet hall then we are residents of this finite mundane world – literally “am Ha’aretz” – “people of the land”. What an insult compared to the lofty potential that man can achieve if he prepares himself accordingly.
We have to learn how to deal with our schizophrenic make up. Our bodies are pushing us to live the moment but our souls are driving us to earn eternity – to survive past the grave. We must both sojourn here and keep moving because our soul is the only part of us that is the resident in the world.
Perhaps another Mishnah from Ethics Of Our Fathers can help us internalise this most basic idea. We are told, “Akvia ben Mahalelel says: Consider three things and you will not come into the grip of sin: Know from where you came, and to where you go, and before Whom you will give justification and reckoning. “From where you came?” – from a putrid drop; “Where you go?” – to a place of dust, worms and maggots; “And before Whom you will give justification and reckoning?” – before the King Who reigns over kings, Hashem.”
Many are bothered by the repetition in the Mishnah which first posits the questions and later repeats them with their answers. The explanation given is that the original questions are addressed to the lofty soul – the Divine spark within us. Know where you come from – we are a portion of the Divine. Where you are going – to achieve greatness and to soar to spiritual heights. And focus on the day of judgement when you are back in front of Hashem Himself.
We then turn to the other partner – the physical body that would like to monopolise(!) man’s interests and intentions. Where do you come from? What ‘yichus’ (lineage) do you have – a mere putrid drop. How then can the body seek to be the driver? Where are you going? Our physical bodies ultimately decay. Can such a transient part of us be allowed to dictate our every move? And finally remember – dear body – that you will have to appear before the heavenly tribunal to answer up. Are we bound to our bodies, “in jail” or are we “just visiting”?
On an even more practical level, I strongly believe that a trip perhaps once a month to an old age home is a stark reminder of the fate of our bodies. Subconsciously a visit to the elderly penetrates through our body and reminds us that we truly are “just visiting!” We are all on a journey, this world is just a corridor towards the next world. I heard this explained with a beautiful parable – an aeroplane sleeve. Who stops and sits down on the aeroplane sleeve, to admire the appealing adverts found there? The sleeve just serves to transport you from the plane to the airport, but to stop there?
Good Shabbos, Yaakov