LEV1017 See [[LEV206]] Leviticus 18:4 laws SPERO 24-5

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LEV1018 See [[LEV957]] Leviticus 25:10 jubilee AMEMEI 130

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LEV1021 The legal distinction between custody and ownership also played a significant part in the development of ethical obligations in the field of social welfare. The biblical declaration that the land belongs to God [this verse] limits man to the role of custodian of his wealth. Property was entrusted to man on the condition that he use it for the good of all. Modern states have enacted into law advanced social concepts to alleviate the plight of the needy. Yet no law has succeeded in transmitting a sense of ethics to its citizenry on a personal level. Secular education has failed to replace religion as a moral force.

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LEV1019 See [[LEV958]] Leviticus 25:10 liberty SACKS 204-5

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LEV1020 The concept of equality we find in the Torah specifically and Judaism generally is not an equality of wealth: Judaism is not communism. Nor is it an equality of power: Judaism is not anarchy. It is fundamentally an equality of dignity. We are all equal citizens in the nation whose sovereign is God. Hence the elaborate political and economic structure set out in Leviticus, organized around the number seven, the sign of the holy. Every seventh day is free time. Every seventh year, the produce of the field belongs to all; Israelite slaves are to be liberated and debts released. Every fiftieth year, the year following the seventh set of seven years, ancestral land was returned to its original owners. Thus the inequalities that are the inevitable result of freedom are mitigated. The logic of all these provisions is the priestly insight that God, creator of all, is the ultimate owner of all. [This verse]. God therefore has the right, not just the power, to set limits to inequality. No one should be robbed of dignity by total poverty, endless servitude, or unrelieved indebtedness.

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LEV1023 What Shabbat does for humans and animals, the Sabbatical and Jubilee years do for the land. The earth too is entitled to its periodic rest. The Torah warns that if the Israelites do not respect this, they will suffer exile (Leviticus 26:34). Behind this are two concerns. One is environmental. As Rambam points out, land which is overexploited eventually erodes and loses its fertility. The Israelites were therefore commanded to conserve the soil by giving it periodic fallow years, not pursuing short-term gain at the cost of long-term desolation (The Guide for the Perplexed, III: 39). The second, no less significant, is theological: "The land," says God, "is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me" (Leviticus 25:23). We are guests on earth.

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LEV1022 True, Israel of old had its rich and its poor. But the Torah made ample provision for the poor, and more important--no group could ever gain permanent control of enough land, and with it wealth and control, to make the country a nightmare of contrast between the fabulously rich and powerful on the one hand, and the miserable, illiterate starving peasant worker on the other. The Almighty's words are clear: "the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for Mine is the land; for you are strangers and sojourners [temporary dwellers] with Me" [this verse]. Israel could never have a chasm so stark and unbridgeable between landed aristocracy and starving poor that it would need a Lenin or Stalin to seize the land, or a Castro to take from the rich and give to the poor.

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LEV1024 Trust in God when alone. Every person is necessarily in one of two situations: either he is a stranger or he lives among family and friends. If he is a stranger, he should, whenever he feels lonely, find companionship in God and, in his condition as a stranger, places trust in Him. He should bear in mind that the soul is also a stranger in this world, and the inhabitants of the earth are like strangers on it, as it says in Scripture: “For to Me you are strangers and temporary residents” (Vayikra 25:23). He should think of how anyone who has relatives will, in a short while, be left a solitary stranger; neither relative nor child will help him, not one of them will accompany him. He should also consider that he is freed from the heavy burden of supporting relatives and fulfilling obligations toward them, and regard this as one of the blessings the Creator has bestowed upon him. For if he is busy with secular interests and providing for his material needs, his labors are lighter without wife or child, and their absence means rest for him and is beneficial to him. And if he is concerned about his latter end, his mind is undoubtedly clearer and freer when he is in a state of solitude.

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LEV1025 See [[GEN1070]] Genesis 19:9 alien DUTIES 765-7

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LEV1026 It was taught: If he sold it to the first for one hundred, and the first sold it to the second for two hundred, he makes the reckoning only with the first, as it is written: "To the man to whom he sold it." If he sold it to the first for two hundred, and the first sold it to the second for one hundred, he makes the reckoning only with the second, as it is written: "and he shall return the balance to the man"--To the man that is in it [i.e., that possesses it]. And whence is it derived that we always give the seller the advantage? Perhaps we should give it to the buyer! Do not entertain this notion, for we derive "redemption" [here] - "redemption," in respect to a Hebrew man-servant. [Just as in his redemption, the advantage is always his, and not the buyer's, so, here] (Erchin 30b)

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