“At the heart of the first half of week’s parasha, Behar-Bekhukotai, is the visionary concept of returning land to its original owner at the end of a 50-year cycle. This prevents the polarization of society into two classes: wealthy, powerful landowners on the one hand and permanently impoverished people on the other. In an agrarian society, a farmer who sold all the land to pay debts had no prospect of being anything other than a servant…(One of the moral objectives of this law is that) no person should be condemned to permanent servitude.” (Etz Hayyim commentary below the line, page 738)
Unfortunately Israel did not always live up to this goal and our ancestors paid the price for their behavior. “The prophet Jeremiah predicted 70 years of exile in Babylonia to make up for the 70 sabbatical years the people neglected during their approximately 500 years of living in Israel as is written, ‘Those who survived the sword he exiled to Babylon, and they became his and his sons’ servants till the rise of the Persian kingdom, in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, until the land paid back its sabbaths; as long as it lay desolate it kept sabbath, till seventy years were completed.’” (II Chronicles 36:20-21) (Ibid)
Today I am terribly concerned about continued growing economic gap between the very rich and the rest of our countrymen. The top 1% already owns 30% of our nation’s wealth. Pres. Trump’s and the GOP’s proposed budget continues the growing income disparity between the top 1% and the rest of us. “High-income households and profitable corporations would grow even wealthier under Republican proposals for trillions of dollars in new or extended tax cuts, even as Republican proposals for trillions of dollars of cuts to health assistance, food assistance, and other programs would leave more children in poverty, more families without stable housing, and more people without health coverage. Families would also face an additional burden: higher prices for many basic goods due to the tariffs that President Trump has begun to impose, which would act as a large tax increase on U.S. consumers.” (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/2025-budget-stakes-high-income-tax-cuts-price-hiking-tariffs-would-harm) in the words of Robert Reisch, “It is reverse Robin Hood.”
As in the case of ancient Israel, I shudder the price our
country will pay if this trend continues.
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