This Week’s Torah Portion: B’har – בְּהַר (Leviticus 25:1-26:2)
“And you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubileefor you: each of you shall return to your holding, and each of you shall return to your family” Leviticus 25:10
A Jubilee of the 50th year reminds us that all people were born to be free. We were all created in the image of the Divine, and we all deserve freedom!
This Week’s Torah Portion: B’har (Leviticus 25:1-26:2)
Leviticus 25:46 says “you shall fear your God.”
That’s not a very good translation. We are not supposed to be afraid of God. But English doesn’t have a very good word for the Hebrew “yirah.”
Think of it like our relationship with the ocean. The ocean can be a source of great beauty, joy, inspiration and even love. But the ocean can be an uncontrollable and powerfully destructive force too. Standing between those two realities, we start to understand what it means to see God with a sense of “yirah.”
Growing up on the shore of Lake Superior, I learned to appreciate the majesty of its vastness: there is greatness, and there is power, and there is beauty, but above all there is an affirmation of life.
“God is like the ocean and we are like the waves…”
This Week’s Torah Portion: B’har (Leviticus 25:1-26:2)Leviticus 25:46 says “you shall fear your God.”
That’s not a very good translation. We are not supposed to be afraid of God. But English doesn’t have a very good word for the Hebrew “yirah.”
Think of it like our relationship with the ocean. The ocean can be a source of great beauty, joy, inspiration and even love. But the ocean can be an uncontrollable and powerfully destructive force too. Standing between those two realities, we start to understand what it means to see God with a sense of “yirah.”
Growing up on the shore of Lake Superior, I learned to appreciate the majesty of its vastness: there is greatness, and there is power, and there is beauty, but above all there is an affirmation of life.
“God is like the ocean and we are like the waves…”
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