An all-too-common feature of contemporary political discourse in the religious community is the attempt to prove that a certain political doctrine, party or candidate is wholly representative of the Torah’s beliefs.
This is just one cautionary example as to how forcing the Torah’s timeless teachings into the rigid framework of modern-day political manifestos can lead to much of its nuanced spiritual guidance being lost on its readers.
Reflecting on the Torah reading over Shabbat made me wonder whether the same holds true in terms of Shemittah/Yovel and how the Torah seeks to structure its society and economy. It struck me how the society envisaged by the Torah transcends many of the ideological divides and debates which occupy today’s political and economic theorists.
The first thing to notice is how private ownership of land is fiercely protected and forms the central pillar of Israelite society when they enter the land. Private ownership of land is the bedrock and inalienable right of every family. This gives everyone a stable platform and creates a society in which – at least as a starting point – no individual or group is financially dependent on another.
Whereas most of human history has been dominated by landlord-serf structure, the Torah envisages a vastly different society in which every single member is a landowner. No-one is left simply creating wealth for the landlord being subjugated to them as a result – to be drafted into their armies – and essentially owned by them.
Significantly, Torah law makes it extremely hard for any family to lose this ancestral plot.
Human history has shown us the evil of children being born into servitude – generational debt bondage has led to untold numbers of children being born into inescapable suffering on account of their parents’ and grandparents’ failed business ventures. While it is true that the creation of wealth often requires risk-taking in order to raise investment capital, the society as envisaged by the Torah however only permits one to take such a risk with one’s own personal future.
Crippling debts are unlikely to be built up in the absence of interest, and loans secured against one’s property are automatically limited to a maximum of 50 years – until the next Yovel. Even if one’s investment utterly fails, the Torah has thus instituted a reset which ensures that children and grandchildren do not suffer for the financial misgoverning of their parents. The family plot will be restored to them to make their own attempts to build a stable financial life. Debt bondage, meanwhile, is extremely time-limited to an initial maximum of seven years, to be extended only at the request of the debtor.
By limiting the ability to risk one’s entire family fortunes on a daring investment, the Torah not only protects children from being born into cross-generational debt-bondage and serfdom. It also reduces the likelihood of children of lords and wealthy landowners being raised in an environment of detached and entitled privilege. Parents who have dealt wisely with their estate will be able to raise their children with additional comforts and opportunities, but the children will one day need to exhibit similar wisdom and responsibility in managing the family estate in order to preserve this gain.
In place of the system of lords and serfs which has prevailed for much of human history, the Torah seeks to create a more cohesive society – repeatedly emphasising and symbolising through various commandments the need for universal education and equality before the law.
For the unfortunate few who fall between the cracks of this system, Tanach places powerful religious obligations upon those who are able to assist the poor and downtrodden – emphasising the need not just to feed but also to lend money to the poor in order to allow them eventually to be self-sufficient. The prophets repeatedly seek to remind the nation of the centrality of kindness and charity to the prototype Priestly Nation that God envisaged.
As with attempts to shoehorn the Torah’s attitude to weapons onto modern-day debates over guns (mentioned above), the Torah’s vision for society can be seen to transcend recent political ideologies and current debate. It is fiercely insistent on private ownership unlike Communist-Socialist structures, while simultaneously placing severe limits on the sort of private risk taking to create enormous wealth that Free Market systems endorse.
How such a balance might be implemented in the modern era is a fascinating but separate discussion. Would the Messianic era envisage a return to some form of ancestral plot which would secure each family once again within the Land of Israel? It is noteworthy that even in King Solomon’s era, the wise king undertook a major redesign of the land-ownership and tribal system based on the evolution of the national agrarian economy towards maritime trade and commerce (See I Kings 4, and the analysis of R’ Alex Israel in I Kings: Torn in Two). Instead of trying to manipulate the Torah to claim support for any particular modern-day political party or ideology, we should instead stand back and appreciate it instead for the radically different, divinely-ordained society that it envisages – and challenges us to work towards.
First posted on Facebook 17 May 2023, here.
