My Weekly Drash (a mini D'var Torah) - B'har/B'hukotai
Posted by Daniel M. Kimmel on May 14, 2009 | Tags: Behar
In our double Parshah of B'har/B'hukkotai we read, "If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your authority, and you hold him as though a resident alien, let him live by your side." (Lev. 25:35) From this we glean we are to help our fellow Jews who may have fallen on hard times. These and subsequent verses in the Parshah were used to justify rescuing Jews from the former Soviet Union and from Ethiopia, for example. Historically it also explains why, in America, the established German Jews might have felt embarrassed by the arrival of their poorer and less sophisticated brethren from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century, but they didn't let that get in the way of supporting the charities that helped the new arrivals. As Hillel famously noted in Pirkei Avot, which we read between Pesach and Shavuot, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I?" (Avot I:14).
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Daniel M. KimmelJoined: October 2, 2007 Daniel M. Kimmel is a Boston area film critic, lecturer and author. He does these weekly mini-lessons for the Mishkan Tefila Brotherhood's newsletter. You are free to use them for similar purposes. Divrei Torah (117) |
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