Behar, BeHar, Be-har, or B'har (—Hebrew for "on the mount," the fifth word, and the first distinctive word, in the parashah) is the 32nd weekly Torah portion (, parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the ninth in the Book of Leviticus. The parashah tells the laws of the Sabbatical year (, Shmita) and limits on debt servitude. The parashah constitutes Leviticus 25:1–26:2. It is the shortest of the weekly Torah portions in the Book of Leviticus (although not the shortest in the Torah). It is made up of 2,817 Hebrew letters, 737 Hebrew words, 57 verses, and 99 lines in a Torah Scroll (, Sefer Torah).
Jews generally read it in May. The lunisolar Hebrew calendar contains up to 55 weeks, the exact number varying between 50 in common years and 54 or 55 in leap years. In leap years (for example, 2024 and 2027), parashah Behar is read separately. In common years (for example, 2025 and 2026), parashah Behar is combined with the next parashah, Bechukotai, to help achieve the needed number of weekly readings.
In years when the first day of Passover falls on a Sabbath (as it does in 2022), Jews in Israel and Reform Jews read the parashah following Passover one week before Conservative and Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora. In such years, Jews in Israel and Reform Jews celebrate Passover for seven days and thus read the next parashah (in 2018, Shemini) on the Sabbath one week after the first day of Passover, while Conservative and Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora celebrate Passover for eight days and read the next parashah (in 2018, Shemini) one week later. In some such years (for example, 2018), the two calendars realign when Conservative and Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora read Behar together with Bechukotai while Jews in Israel and Reform Jews read them separately.See Hebcal Jewish Calendar and compare results for Israel and the Diaspora.
Readings In traditional Sabbath Torah reading, the parashah is divided into seven readings, or , aliyot.See, e.g., Menachem Davis, editor, The Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Vayikra/Leviticus (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2008), pages 174–86.
First reading—Leviticus 25:1–13 In the first reading, on Mount Sinai, God told Moses to tell the Israelites the law of the Sabbatical year for the land.. The people could work the fields for six years, but in the seventh year, the land was to have a Sabbath of complete rest during which the people were not to sow their fields, prune their vineyards, or reap the aftergrowth.. They could, however, eat whatever the land produced on its own.. The people were further to hallow the 50th year, the Jubilee year, and to proclaim release for all with a blast on the horn.. Each Israelite was to return to his family and his ancestral land holding..
Second reading—Leviticus 25:14–18 In the second reading, in selling or buying property, the people were to charge only for the remaining number of crop years until the jubilee, when the land would be returned to its ancestral holder..
Third reading—Leviticus 25:19–24 In the third reading, God promised to bless the people in the sixth year, so that the land would yield a crop sufficient for three years.. God prohibited selling the land beyond reclaim, for God owned the land, and the people were but strangers living with God..
Fourth reading—Leviticus 25:25–28 In the fourth reading, if one fell into straits and had to sell land, his nearest relative was to redeem what was sold.. If one had no one to redeem, but prospered and acquired enough wealth, he could refund the pro rata share of the sales price for the remaining years until the jubilee, and return to his holding..
Fifth reading—Leviticus 25:29–38 In the fifth reading, if one sold a house in a walled city, one could redeem it for a year, and thereafter the house would pass to the purchaser beyond reclaim and not be released in the jubilee.. But houses in villages without encircling walls were treated as open country subject to redemption and release through the jubilee.. Levites were to have a permanent right of redemption for houses and property in the cities of the Levites.. The unenclosed land about their cities could not be sold.. If a kinsman fell into straits and came under one's authority by virtue of his debts, one was to let him live by one's side as a kinsman and not exact from him interest.. Israelites were not to lend money to countrymen at interest..
Sixth reading—Leviticus 25:39–46 In the sixth reading, if the kinsman continued in straits and had to give himself over to a creditor for debt, the creditor was not to subject him to the treatment of a slave, but to treat him as a hired or bound laborer until the jubilee year, at which time he was to be freed to go back to his family and ancestral holding.. Israelites were not to rule over such debtor Israelites ruthlessly.. Israelites could, however, buy and own as inheritable property slaves from other nations..
Seventh reading—Leviticus 25:47–26:2 In the seventh reading, if an Israelite fell into straits and came under a resident alien's authority by virtue of his debts, the Israelite debtor was to have the right of redemption.. A relative was to redeem him or, if he prospered, he could redeem himself by paying the pro rata share of the sales price for the remaining years until the jubilee.. God again told the people they shall not make idols and shall keep God's Sabbaths. .
Readings according to the triennial cycle Jews who read the Torah according to the triennial cycle of Torah reading read the parashah according to a different schedule.See, e.g., Richard Eisenberg, "A Complete Triennial Cycle for Reading the Torah," Proceedings of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative Movement: 1986–1990 (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 2001), pages 383–418.
In inner-biblical interpretation The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these Biblical sources:For more on inner-Biblical interpretation, see, e.g., Benjamin D. Sommer, "Inner-biblical Interpretation," in Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors, The Jewish Study Bible, 2nd edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pages 1835–41.
Leviticus chapter 25
Yom Kippur Leviticus 25:8–10 refers to the Festival of Yom Kippur. In the Hebrew Bible, Yom Kippur is called: the Day of Atonement (, Yom HaKippurim) and . or a Day of Atonement (, Yom Kippurim);. a Sabbath of solemn rest (, Shabbat Shabbaton); and . and a holy convocation (, mikrah kodesh). and .
Much as Yom Kippur, on the 10th of the month of Tishrei, precedes the Festival of Sukkot, on the 15th of the month of Tishrei, Exodus 12:3–6 speaks of a period starting on the 10th of the month of Nisan preparatory to the Festival of Passover, on the 15th of the month of Nisan.
Leviticus 16:29–34 and 23:26–32 and Numbers 29:7–11 present similar injunctions to observe Yom Kippur. Leviticus 16:29 and 23:27 and Numbers 29:7 set the Holy Day on the tenth day of the seventh month (Tishrei). Leviticus 16:29 and 23:27 and Numbers 29:7 instruct that "you shall afflict your souls." Leviticus 23:32 makes clear that a full day is intended: "you shall afflict your souls; in the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening." And Leviticus 23:29 threatens that whoever "shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from his people." Leviticus 16:29 and 23:28 and Numbers 29:7 command that you "shall do no manner of work." Similarly, Leviticus 16:31 and 23:32 call it a "Sabbath of solemn rest." And in Leviticus 23:30, God threatens that whoever "does any manner of work in that same day, that soul will I destroy from among his people." Leviticus 16:30, 16:32–34, and 23:27–28, and Numbers 29:11 describe the purpose of the day to make atonement for the people. Similarly, Leviticus 16:30 speaks of the purpose "to cleanse you from all your sins," and Leviticus 16:33 speaks of making atonement for the most holy place, the tent of meeting, the altar; and the priests. Leviticus 16:29 instructs that the commandment applies both to "the home-born" and to "the stranger who sojourns among you." Leviticus 16:3–25 and 23:27 and Numbers 29:8–11 command offerings to God. And Leviticus 16:31 and 23:31 institute the observance as "a statute forever."
Leviticus 16:3–28 sets out detailed procedures for the priest's atonement ritual during the time of the Temple.
Leviticus 25:8–10 instructs that after seven Sabbatical years, on the Jubilee year, on the day of atonement, the Israelites were to proclaim liberty throughout the land with the blast of the horn and return all people to their possessions and to their families.
In Isaiah 57:14–58:14, the Haftarah for Yom Kippur morning, God describes "the fast that I have chosen [on] the day for a man to afflict his soul." Isaiah 58:3–5 makes clear that "to afflict the soul" was understood as fasting. But Isaiah 58:6–10 goes on to impress that "to afflict the soul," God also seeks acts of social justice: "to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke," "to let the oppressed go free," "to give your bread to the hungry, and ... bring the poor that are cast out to your house," and "when you see the naked, that you cover him."
The Duty To Redeem Tamara Cohn Eskenazi wrote that Biblical laws required Israelites to act as redeemers for relatives in four situations: (1) redemption of land in Leviticus 25:25–34, (2) redemption of persons from slavery, especially in Leviticus 25:47–50, (3) redemption of objects dedicated to the sanctuary in Leviticus 27:9–28, and (4) avenging the blood of a murdered relative in Numbers 35.Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2011), page liv.
Naboth In 1 Kings 21:2, Naboth the Jezreelite refused to sell his vineyard to King Ahab because the land is an inheritance subject to the rule in Leviticus 25:23.Robert Jamieson, Andrew R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), volume 1, page 362 (commentary on 1 Kings 21).
Leviticus chapter 26 Leviticus 26:1 directs the Israelites not to rear up a pillar (, matzeivah). Exodus 23:24 directed the Israelites to break in pieces the Canaanites' pillars (, matzeivoteihem). And Deuteronomy 16:22 prohibits setting up a pillar (, matzeivah), "which the Lord your God hates." But before these commandments were issued, in Genesis 28:18, Jacob took the stone on which he had slept, set it up as a pillar (, matzeivah), and poured oil on the top of it.
In early nonrabbinic interpretation The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these early nonrabbinic sources:For more on early nonrabbinic interpretation, see, e.g., Esther Eshel, "Early Nonrabbinic Interpretation," in Adele Berlin and Marc Brettler, editors, Jewish Study Bible, 2nd edition, pages 1841–59.
Leviticus chapter 25 The Damascus Document of the Qumran sectarians prohibited non-cash transactions with Jews who were not members of the sect. Professor Lawrence Schiffman of New York University read this regulation as an attempt to avoid violating prohibitions on charging interest to one's fellow Jew in Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36–37; and Deuteronomy 23:19–20. Apparently, the Qumran sect viewed prevailing methods of conducting business through credit to violate those laws.Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994), page 107 (citing Zadokite Fragments 13:14–16 = Da 18 II 1–4).
In classical rabbinic interpretation The parashah is discussed in these rabbinic sources from the era of the Mishnah and the Talmud:For more on classical rabbinic interpretation, see, e.g., Yaakov Elman, "Classical Rabbinic Interpretation," in Adele Berlin and Marc Brettler, editors, Jewish Study Bible, 2nd edition, pages 1859–78.