Godly Ecology, Property Rights, and Workers' Rights

לק"י

This week's Torah portion, "On Mt. Sinai," contains 24 biblical precepts and discusses three themes in tandem - ecology, property rights, and workers' rights.  Unlike other portions which discuss each of these issues independently (or in connection with other subjects), this week's portion treats all three as a single, organic unity. While many economists have linked workers' rights and property rights through the principle of (self-)ownership, philosophies of private capital ownership often seem at odds with ecological concerns which affect the entire community.  To further complicate matters, this week's concluding reading from the book of Jeremiah (32:6-22) - giving the details of a specific acquisition which God advised the prophet to make - seems at best only loosely connected to the issues of this week's portion.  What is the unifying element of this week's Torah portion, and why did the members of the Great Assembly conclude the reading with this particular narrative from Jeremiah?

Another seemingly-out-of-place passage in this week's portion may offer some light in which to read the preceding themes: at the very end of the portion, we are again instructed not to substitute any authority for God, be it a concrete object or a social institution.  While the shift in theme may seem like a shift in message, careful reading of the Torah portion indicates otherwise.  Again and again throughout the Torah portion, God is named as the direct authority behind everything from letting the land rest to treating workers fairly to guaranteeing citizens' real estate rights.  We must treat workers fairly and decently not to bolster our self-images as benevolent employers, but because each and every worker is a human being made in the image of God, demanding our respect and our love - and if the worker is Jewish, our recognition that he or she is actively "employed" by an authority higher than our own.  We must respect the rights of individuals to own real estate and other capital not because these are gifts or privileges awarded by human fiat (and which may be repealed by further fiat), but out of respect for God, who truly owns the entire Earth and everything within it - especially the land of Israel - and who annually assigns property to each and every person to use as his or her personal resource.  Such a concept of land ownership effectively prevents a feudal society from arising in the land, a society in which all the land is considered the property of a central human authority and all residents are considered vassals or tenants of said authority.  So long as God is respected as the sole legitimate owner of the Earth, no one can ever be truly disenfranchised or unduly evicted from their homes.

The same thinking underlies the ecological theory developed in this week's Torah portion.  As God is the one who created and sustains the Earth, God is the one who owns the Earth, and our use of the Earth rests upon our acceptance of that property claim.  God allows each of us to reap the benefits and bounty of the land so long as we respect the rights of others to do so as well - and so long as we use the Earth's resources in a sustainable fashion, regularly giving the land (and all the creatures it supports) time to regenerate and grow.  As with the use of human labor, the Torah cautions against our use of the land turning into abuse - which would be a crime against both God and humanity!

The unifying element of this week's Torah portion - God's authority as owner of everything and as guarantor of our rights - is clearly evident in the concluding reading from the book of Jeremiah.  The narrative begins with Jeremiah's acquisition of the property by God's word, and ends with Jeremiah's recognition that all property is acquired by God's word.  Yet a theme unique to the concluding reading adds a new light to the Torah portion - that of liberation.  Jeremiah was told to buy the property as a sign of God's continued control of the land and its occupants, a beacon of confidence in God's active authority despite the attempts of human emperors to claim authority over the land, and everything on it, for themselves.  The theme of liberation is tied directly to the opening of this week's Torah portion, which describes the marriage of ecology and economics in the institution of Jubilee.  This celebrated culmination of the land's agricultural cycle marked the liberation of nearly all property and laborers in Israel, a communal testimony to the authority of God over all facets of life on the land.

We hope that this weekend, in all the lands we call home, we will find a deeper recognition of God's presence in the special relationship between the community, the individual, and the Earth we all share.

Shabbath Shalom!