Midreshet Amit

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The Message of Yovel

By: Anna Zbrowski and Zoe Hamburger

This past week we celebrated Yom Hatzmaut, Israel's Independence Day. On this day we celebrate our Independence as Jewish people in the land of Israel, that Hashem gave us. In Parsha Behar, this week's parshat, we learn about the laws of yovel. One of the laws of yovel is the concept that land that is sold in Israel, returns to his original owner in the yovel year (which is after 49 years). The passuk explains ויקרא כה:כד כי לי הארץ כי גרים ותושבים אתם עמדי . We are supposed to understand that the land is Hashems, and that we are just strangers here. We might of thought that because Hashem gave us the land of Israel that we have all rights to it. Rashi explains "For the land is mine:" you shall not begrudge this, for it is not yours. Don't be upset, it wasn't yours anyway. Nowadays we don't keep the laws of Yovel but their are still messages that we could learn from these laws. One of these messages is that one should see the hand of God in our everyday lives. Today it is easy to think that because you work for something it is automatically yours. Yovel reminds us that the things you work hardest for belong to Hashem.