Parsha Behar (Leviticus 25:1-26:2)
By Barrett Holman Leak
SAN DIEGO — I want you to picture in your mind a beautiful wedding that takes place on a crisp autumn morning. The air has that quiet stillness, a muted grey sky hangin’ low, like it knows somethin’ heavy is about to unfold. There they stand, a young couple, glowing, radiant in their wedding finery. That delicate lace gown is barely touching the gravel. But not just any gravel, no. This is the same gravel that crunched under the wheels of the train standing in the background, the train, packed tight with desperate, terrified souls, as it rolled onto the grounds, making its final, horrific stop. The groom’s suit, sharp as a tack, oh so impeccably tailored, a stark, painful contrast to the ragged, striped uniforms and the skeletal bodies that once haunted these very grounds.
Look around, folks! Guests are sitting there in rows of elegant chairs, faces caught between anticipation and a quiet reverence. There are gaunt, empty prisoner barracks looming just beyond?
Flowers, beautiful white lilies and deep crimson roses, adorn the beautiful chuppah against the chilling backdrop of barbed wire fences stretching out, endless, punctuated by the menacing shadows of guard towers and barbed wire? Soft music floats on the breeze, a string quartet playing a poignant tune. Can you hear it, with the faint, ghostly whispers of the cries and the prayers that once filled this very air?
And those vows? “Forever and always,” they whisper, tears glistening in the bride’s eyes as the groom slips the ring on her finger. All this joy, all this promise, while in the not-so-distant background, the chilling chimneys of the ovens, once used for burning bodies, stand tall, grim sentinels of unspeakable horror. And as that ceremony closes, applause ripples through the small gathering, the couple, husband and wife, turn to face their loved ones, faces alight with joy, ready to begin their new life.
Now, hold that image in your mind. Do you realize that this macabre tableau of profound happiness and new beginnings, this beautiful wedding, this sacred moment, took place amidst the haunting, blood-soaked silence of Auschwitz-Birkenau?
I have been there, walked through those buildings and grounds, my body filled with sorrow and anger. The very thought of a wedding taking place there is perverse and infuriating. It is deeply, profoundly wrong. The idea of celebrating love and life on ground consecrated by unimaginable suffering, by systematic murder, by the very ashes of millions, that ain’t just insensitive, my friends. That’s an act of deep historical blindness. A chilling show of ethical emptiness. To hold a joyous occasion in a place synonymous with genocide, starvation, torture, and mass extermination, that is nothing short of offensive, evil, and horrific! It dares to trivialize and desecrate the memory of every single soul lost there! And it insults the very notion of human decency itself!
But this violation of God’s word, of what we are told in Parsha Behar continues. This past week in the state of Louisiana, our country experienced the burning of the Nottoway Plantation House — the American South’s largest remaining slave plantation — and it was reduced to charred rubble by fire. There is now an outcry by the owner and brides because to them, it is the loss of a popular wedding venue. That big white house, those beautiful grounds were all built on the backs, the sweat, the tears, and the very lives of our nation’s enslaved African ancestors. It was a brutal, torturous solace of profound human suffering under chattel slavery. The owner and the brides are unashamedly stating that the slavery history of this plantation and its big house where the slavemaster and his family lived, should be forgotten and whitewashed. The owner, a lawyer, says he and his wife, a judge, are “non-racist” and that we should move on and forget about “past racial injustice”.
He intends to rebuild the plantation in the midst of the live oaks that in the past had the strange fruit of Black bodies hanging from them and their roots in the blood-soaked soil of enslaved, raped kidnapped hostages from Africa.
We are called to get our minds right about this and situations like it. There is no difference between holding a wedding at Auschwitz and holding a wedding at a slave plantation. Torah is a living word and this week’s Torah portion, Parsha Behar addresses what is happening.
Parsha Behar is a blueprint for justice, a profound ethical framework. This text offers us an illuminating light We are presented with laws concerning land, liberty, and human dignity. Parsha Behar speaks volumes about the very ground we stand on, the stories it holds, and the sacred obligation we have to remember, to honor, and to truly understand what it means to be free, and to be just.
Behar, means “on the mount” or “on the mountain” and in this case, it is referring to Mount Sinai. It is reminding us that these are not simply human rules; they came straight from God’s holy mountain.
Listen to these truths:
- Shemittah (Sabbatical Year): Every seven years, the land must rest! No plowing, no planting, no harvesting. What grows free, it’s for everyone. This ain’t just about farming; it’s about God ownin’ the land! It’s about trustin’ in His provision and respecting the earth. This opposes the greed that drove the plantation system.
- Yovel (Jubilee Year): After seven cycles of Shemittah, every 50th year, the Jubilee! Lands return to their original families! Servants, they are set free! This law is a divine safeguard against wealth concentration in a few hands. It’s about preventing the permanent concentration of power and ensuring folks get a fresh start. It screams out against perpetual bondage and stolen inheritances, the very bedrock of the plantation economy.
- No Usury, No Exploitation! The parsha forbids charging interest to our struggling neighbors. It says, “Support those who are poor!” Treat everybody with dignity and compassion! The plantation system, it was the very embodiment of exploitation, built on dehumanizing our ancestors for profit, trampling on every word of this divine command.
- Treat Servants with Humanity! While there were forms of servitude in those times, Parsha Behar sets strict rules for humane treatment, promising freedom in the Jubilee year. This is not about ownership of people; it is about temporary service, with dignity and an end date! It’s a thunderous condemnation of the chattel slavery that stains the United States of America.
So, from the wisdom of Parsha Behar, using a slave plantation or a concentration camp for a wedding, for a joyous celebration, is a profound ethical contradiction! It is celebrating on ground that violated God’s sacred principles of justice, of human dignity, and of fair sharing.
The burning of that Nottoway Plantation, whatever the cause, shines a light on how fragile these structures built on injustice truly are. It demands we re-evaluate how we remember and how we use these historically charged places and that we never forget.
Parsha Behar compels us! It commands us to remember the divine words we have been told about human suffering, about striving for true liberation, dignity and equity for all. It makes it clear that it is unethical to forget what came before, and that we cannot sanitize or celebrate that which stands in direct opposition to the very essence of justice and compassion!
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Barrett Holman Leak is a freelance writer based in San Diego.