The Hero’s Journey Home

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai, Leviticus 25:1 - 27:34

by David Wein, Tikvat Israel Messianic Synagogue, Richmond, VA

The month was May, and the year was 2019, so it was . . . last year. Those were, of course, simpler times. Sonya and I drove up to Maryland to visit Beth Messiah. For Parshat Emor, I shared a sermon on the Brit Hadashah portion in John 10; I became a shepherd complete with matching staff:

My wife, Sonya, and I spent a great oneg and Shabbat afternoon schmoozing with the folks, and then I dropped her off at a train heading back home to Richmond.

 I kept waving and ran after the train, much to the delight of Sonya and her newly introduced traveling buddies. It would be two weeks until I saw her again. I was going on a quest, my own hero’s journey. I would travel to an alien realm (New England), where I would acquire a mentor (or a few), suffer some minor trials, become transformed, and return home to my beloved. At least, that’s how I view it now, having since taken a class with Rabbi Russ Resnik, who’s quite into these sorts of literary paradigms.  

Beth Messiah was just the first stop. I continued up to New Jersey, where I figured if I couldn’t be with my wife, I could at least be with her family. Seeing Sonya’s family was beyond encouraging, as always; they prayed a blessing on my journey as I continued onward. Though I was a little sad saying goodbye to my bride, the prayers of her family enlivened my heart.  

The next day I picked up Rabbi Ben Volman, who had flown into Newark Airport just a few minutes away. We had our own hero’s adventure that day consisting of an authentic Jewish deli (these are few and far between in Richmond), George Washington’s Headquarters (a historic site), and eventually a Jewish retreat center in Connecticut.  

It was here that I would spend a few days doing a Midrash study on Song of Songs with many of my mentors and colleagues, led by the inimitable Rav Carl Kinbar.

 At the same time I was excited to be doing text study, I was also confronted with some of my insecurities; learning alongside many of my teachers was intimidating at times. However, being in Jewish space, surrounded by some of my favorite people, eating in a kosher kitchen, studying Jewish texts—there was much to be thankful for. The only part that made me sad was being without my wife. This was the longest period we had ever been apart, and I shared with her every day all the cool things I was experiencing and learning.

 After that, I spent a few days staying with Rabbi Paul Saal, and spent some time with him and his family. I had the honor of sharing a Devar Torah with his community the following Shabbat. It was the same as this week’s Torah portion, and I spoke about the Realm of Holiness.  

The parasha starts off by explaining the year of the yovel, sometimes translated as Jubilee, but I like the way Everett Fox renders it: Homebringing. The basic idea of the sermon was that God’s realm is holy and good, and Shabbat, Yom Kippur, the Jubilee, the Tabernacle, the Messiah, these are all part of his plan for the holy realm to intercept the earth, as it was in Eden. Here is an excerpt from the sermon I gave at Shuvah Yisrael in Connecticut:

The year of the yovel is described in a few places, but here, the combination of Atonement and Shabbat is in play. First, every seven years the land itself gets to rest, to reset. Then, just as the Holy of Holies gets a reset for Yom Kippur, the whole land of Israel gets a reset for Jubilee. The Realm of Hashem rests and resets. But the emphasis here is a moral reset, where enslavement is obliterated, What happens to indentured servants? They are released. What happens to evicted families? They return home.  

The principle here, expressed a few lines down, is that the land belongs to Israel only in a sense. Who is the real owner of the land of Israel? Hashem owns the land, it is his realm, his dominion, which he has given to the people of Israel to steward. Verse 23 reminds us of this central theme: “The land is mine; you are nothing but strangers and residents within it.”

“But, David,” I hear you protesting: “I thought the land was a promise connected to the covenant with Abraham? God will bless our descendants and bring us into the land so that all nations will be blessed through Abraham’s descendants. So isn’t the land ours?” The promise has a purpose: mediating blessing through Israel. This is the ultimate purpose of Hashem for the people and the land, but the history contains examples of the land vomiting out the people, due to what? Idol worship and gross immorality and mistreatment of the poor. This should not surprise us: an unclean people who defile the land cannot abide in it, for the land is Kadosh. Because of the mercy of Hashem, Exile always gives way to Return. The land is God’s, and he has given it to Israel to garden, to shepherd, to enact restoration, and to worship Him alone. And even when we mess it up and are cast out of the holy realm, he always brings us back, or even sometimes brings it back to us.  

And so, here we see the ultimate goal: restorative justice because the realm of God belongs to God. The land is his, and more importantly, the people are his. On this special Yom Kippur, every 49 years, we get a reset from moral and economic pollution, so that the whole land is Kadosh.  

Isn’t this the idea of Shabbat? Every seven days, we reset, and we enter the holy realm not of space, but of what? Time. Every seven years, and every 49 years, the land and people reset like Eden, in the abode of God.

That’s why I like the word “homebringing” for yovel. In this case, I found Eden to be breaking into the alien realm of New England. The end of the hero’s journey, the end of my journey, and the end of all our journeys, is either bringing us back to Eden, or bringing Eden back to us. In other words, the realm of heaven breaks into the realm of earth, as with the tabernacle.  Home, Exile, and Return. This is one of the principles underneath the Jubilee narrative, and the Torah as a whole. The other principle is that everything we have and everything we are belong to God. Our journey, our work, our possessions, our spouses, our children, our parents, our lives—they all belong to him; we’re just leasing them, stewarding them. The realms of heaven and earth belong to God, which of course is the opening line of the Torah. These two principles lead to deeper trust, deeper shalom.  

While I was still up north, I went to my 15-year college reunion in Connecticut, hung out with my old prayer buddy from college, and drove back toward home. I first saw my beloved again at a Tikkun conference in Maryland. We ran to each other like the final scene of some romantic comedy, or perhaps an epic adventure. And even though I hadn’t yet reached Richmond, home had come to me.