The Joy of Dispossesion
Parashat B’chukotai, Leviticus 26:3–27:34
Rabbi Russ Resnik, UMJC Rabbinic Counsel
Recently a friend of mine was helping her friend pack and get ready to move and found this handwritten Post-it note on a bookcase: “If God is all we have, that is all we need.” She commented, “Hmmm . . . but we all have a lot more. Maybe we don’t need it all?!” That’s a question bound to arise when you’re moving a whole household—and also as we listen to this week’s parasha, which returns to the discussion of the laws of jubilee that started last week.
“If God is all we have, that is all we need” is a great lead-in to this whole topic and its message for today, especially one big idea that I’ll call the joy of dispossession.
Let’s start with a review of the basic instruction from last week’s parasha:
And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. (Lev 25:10)
The return to one’s original land grant and family limited the accumulation of wealth, a limitation that we might want to think about in 2022, when the wealthiest 1% in America holds 40% of all the wealth in this country. Globally, the top 1% holds 50% of all wealth. This imbalance is increasing in our current global economy, and more wealth brings more power, including power to dominate and control others. Hashem blocks this sort of accumulation of wealth among his people, not through elaborate regulation and bureaucracy, but through a simple rule: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev 25:23).
This principle makes for a healthier and freer society, with a vision, not of boundless accumulation, but of hardy self-reliance, where everyone sits under his own vine and fig tree (Mic 4:4). As Rabbi Hillel observed long ago, “the more possessions, the more worry” (Avot 2:7). In our age of consumerism, an age that elevates greed into a virtue, we need to rediscover the joy of dispossession. We spend our energies worrying about what to acquire, and how to acquire it, but in the end, what we acquire threatens to possess us, as Hillel noted. The principle of dispossession relieves us of such preoccupations, and has the potential to draw us closer to God.
In the jubilee, each Israelite gets to return to their original holding and family, even if they’ve been sold into bondage: “For it is to me that the people of Israel are bondservants. They are my bondservants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am Hashem your God” (Lev 25:55). The land belongs to God, not to us, or to anyone that we might want to sell it to, and in the same way, we ourselves belong to God. The principle of dispossession includes not only our property but also our own selves—so that we’re free to belong to him.
In most years (although not this year), we read the two parashiyot of Leviticus, B’har and B’chukotai, together as one week’s portion, and both take place in the same physical setting. B’har opens, “And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai . . .” (Lev. 25:1). B’chukotai (and the entire book of Leviticus) concludes, “These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai” (27:34). Gathered at Mount Sinai, the Israelites receive a final set of instructions before they depart for the land of promise. No one imagined at this time that thirty-eight more years of wandering lay ahead. Instead, these instructions were to be the final orders before Israel entered its inheritance. At this crucial moment, as Israel prepares to take possession of the Promised Land, they learn that this inheritance won’t really belong to them at all. The land remains the Lord’s property, and will revert every fifty years to the original division set up under Moses and Joshua.
The instructional session at Mount Sinai ends with a reminder about God’s ownership: “All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the Lord” (Lev 27:30). The tithe reminded the Israelites that the produce of the land and of the flock did not ultimately belong to them, but to God. It’s a reminder we need today as well—probably more than our ancestors did in ancient times!
Possessions may be a gift from God, but they can stand between us and God, and so Messiah’s invitation to follow him involves dispossession: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). And in case that’s not clear enough, Yeshua later adds, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13). For some characters in Luke’s Besorah, like the rich ruler in chapter 18, this means selling all they own, giving the proceeds to the poor, and literally following Yeshua. For others, like the wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus in Luke 19, it means practicing radical generosity and financial justice, even while (apparently) continuing his profession as a tax collector ( and see the similar picture in Luke 3:10–14). But in every case the goal is the joy of dispossession, getting free of our entangling stuff so that we can wholeheartedly serve and follow Messiah.
Let me suggest three specific ways of practicing the joy of dispossession today:
Report in to your owner every morning. Take a moment of quiet, solitude, and focus to check in with God, thank him that you and your time and energy belong to him, and genuinely make yourself available to him—and do it joyfully! (Of course, mornings are impossible for some folks, so pick another consistent time if you need to.)
Demonstrate daily that your possessions belong to God. Practice simple, on-the-ground generosity with your money and time. I learned long ago from my mentor Eliezer Urbach of blessed memory (although I’ve had to work at it ever since) to always have some cash on hand to help anyone in need that you might encounter. This practice still applies in today’s virtual economy.
Consume less. Simplify your possessions and spend minimal energy in accumulating more, to maintain your focus on serving Hashem, and to free up resources for others. To paraphrase Hillel, “the more stuff we possess, the more stuff possesses us,” and the stuff that possesses us may keep us from enjoying the simple obedience that Yeshua calls us to.
We get freed up as we realize that all we have in this world is on loan from God, the one who owns it all. When I forget this, it brings anxiety, greed, and distraction from what matters most. So it might be helpful to ask ourselves now and then, How have my possessions taken possession of me? Am I learning the joy of dispossession as I seek to follow Messiah?
All Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV).