Behar-Bechukotai
This is a double portion. Behar deals with the laws of the shmita and jubilee years. Bechukotai describes the blessings that await Israel if they follow God’s word, and the curses that await if they do not.
Behar-Bechukotai - Nathan Abrams
Nathan Abrams is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Bangor University and a regular Limmud presenter.
As I teach and write about Film Studies, when I was invited to contribute on Parshiot Behar-Behukotai, I decided to contribute in a filmic way. Indeed, I see many similarities between the Torah and the movies.
Parshiot Behar-Behukotai are full of rules and regulations, specifically those concerning the shmittah. The abundance of rules and regulations in the combined parshah led me to think about Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in the classic Coen brothers’ film The Big Lebowski (1998).Walter is a Jewish veteran of the Vietnam War who is also a keen bowler. We learn that he can’t bowl on Saturdays because he’s "shomer shabbes". He also takes a very stringent view on the laws (halachah?) of bowling. In one sequence, he pulls a gun on a fellow (pacifist) competitor whom he believes has committed a foul by stepping over the line. As he tells Smokey (Jimmie Dale Gilmore), "This is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules."
Walter's passionate adherence to the rules of bowling could be read as the Coens' critique of the stringency they observe among their Orthodox co-religionists, whom they might feel prioritise stringency over emotion. In this reading, Walter becomes a representation of a particularly dogmatic rabbi. (Elsewhere in the film, showing a sense of justice and fair play he invokes political correctness to correcting the Dude: "Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.") Yet, when Smokey’s team-mate, Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), later confronts Walter over this incident, it is transformed into a parody of the New Testament in which Walter becomes a comic Pharisee as Lebowksi’s "Jesus" echoes Jesus' argument against the Pharisees for their over-scrupulous observance of religious boundaries, as in the Gospel of Luke when they accuse Jesus of healing the sick on the Sabbath.
Another rule-bound Jew in film is Shlomo "the Rabbi" (Ben Kingsley) in Lucky Number Slevin (Paul McGuigan, 2006). Shlomo is the neurotic leader of a Hasidic criminal gang. He is a rabbi who would rather be a gangster and a gangster who would rather be a rabbi. Although he is a soi-disant "bad man", like Walter he is also a practising Orthodox Jew who lives by a set of rules and regulations. He will not, for example, answer the telephone on Shabbat. Nor will he contemplate premeditated murder as it is proscribed by Jewish law, but he will act in self defence, as this is permitted, and as such is armed with a shotgun for his personal protection. However, his strict adherence to this code has led him to become a fearful agoraphobic man who can never leave his office and for which he is ultimately punished.
What is the moral of this reading of these parshiot? Maybe it is because we are so rule-bound that we don’t make such good gangsters and sportsmen.
Incidentally, the verse "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" (25: 10) also makes an appearance in film (can you guess where?) but that is another story…
Another Voice - Selwyn Gerber
Selwyn Gerber is a founding member and funder of LimmudLA, California.
Parashat Behar begins with Yovel – the jubilee 50th year when the land reverts to its ancestral owners and all slaves go free - and with Shmittah, the 7th year when land lies fallow. It ends by discussing Shabbat. All are reflective of the mandate for regular human withdrawal from the ongoing creative processes in order to allow time and space for the divine presence to reinfuse the world.
All are tied to the number seven – a leitmotif in Torah symbolism which connotes a complete cycle, which then resumes. Our lives as Jews are literally filled with sevens – the days in the week, the days of Pesach and Sukkot, the days of mourning ("shiva") and of wedding celebration ("sheva brachot") are examples. However just as in music an octave (8th note) is the same note as the first but a whole level up, so in our tradition the 8th represents transcendence. The brit is performed on the 8th day, Chanukah – the festival of miracles – is 8 days long, and Shavuot is celebrated 50 days after Pesach begins. Seven weeks of seven are followed by a jump to the next spiritual level of Shavuot.
We are now in the midst of the 49 day counting the Omer and approaching the 50th day, Shavuot when we received the Torah at Sinai. Whereas the temple sacrifice at Pesach was a basic barley offering (the "Omer") representing lower level animal feed, the Shavuot offering was 2 loaves of bread – man made, fermented, formed, elevated. That growth and evolution is what this 50-day journey is all about.
May all of us members of the global Limmud community be blessed to grow to higher levels and be ready to receive the Torah again as a fresh sacred heritage at Shavuot.
