In Parashat Behar, God says something that would upend every modern real estate contract: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers and sojourners with Me” (Leviticus 25:23).
It’s one of the most radical lines in the Torah—and one of the most ignored.
We live in a world obsessed with ownership. We speak in the language of possession: my house, my land, my money, my time. From mortgages to markets, we are trained to see value in permanence, in title, in control. We’re told to build wealth, to protect our assets, to leave something to our children. And none of that is wrong—unless we start to believe that ownership is the end of the story.
Behar offers a corrective. It insists that nothing is truly ours. That land—even sacred, promised land—is only ours temporarily. That we are not owners, but stewards. That the earth does not belong to us, and we cannot act as if it does.
This is not just about agriculture. It’s not about ancient Israelite farming cycles. It is a theological revolution.
Because if land is not property, then wealth is not entitlement. If land is not property, then exploitation is not an option. If land is not property, then permanence is an illusion—and power must be re-leveled regularly.
Behar commands a Shmita year every seven years, in which the land must lie fallow. And a Yovel, a Jubilee, every fifty, in which land is returned to its original stewards and debts are forgiven. These aren’t spiritual metaphors. They are economic resets. They are designed to destabilize monopolies, to restore dignity, to prevent generational cycles of poverty. They are God’s answer to the inevitability of inequality.
Imagine a society that builds into its legal code the regular redistribution of land and capital. Not as punishment. Not as revolution. But as sacred practice.
It’s no surprise we shy away from this text. It runs counter to everything we’ve been taught about success. Behar challenges the very core of capitalist theology: that if you earned it, you deserve to keep it. That if it’s in your name, it’s yours. That wealth signals wisdom, and that possession justifies permanence.
But Torah doesn’t buy that. Torah reminds us that what is “ours” is actually God’s. That accumulation must be interrupted. That our economic lives are not exempt from our spiritual obligations.
This idea is not foreign to Jewish consciousness. It echoes in the blessings we say over food, in the laws of tithing, in the reminders to leave the corners of the field for the poor. Again and again, Torah insists: what you think is yours, isn’t. What you think you’ve earned, you owe. You are not the center. You are part of a system that demands restraint, redistribution, and radical humility.
Behar’s vision is beautiful—and, frankly, uncomfortable.
Because we like ownership. We like control. We want our name on the deed, our mark on the world, our children to inherit what we’ve built. And Torah doesn’t deny that impulse. But it does limit it. It places guardrails on our instinct to dominate. It reminds us that permanence is a spiritual illusion.
“You are but strangers and sojourners with Me.” That’s not just a legal clause—it’s a worldview. Even in the land of Israel, the holiest place we know, we are still guests. Still temporary. Still accountable to a higher Owner.
This theology has enormous implications.
It calls into question how we treat our environment. If the land is not ours, then polluting it is not only irresponsible—it’s a kind of sacrilege.
It challenges how we relate to workers and wages. If capital is not truly ours, then hoarding it while others struggle is not just bad ethics—it’s bad theology.
It critiques how we build institutions. If our names on buildings become more important than the people inside them, then we have confused ownership with service, legacy with ego.
And it speaks to how we lead. In Jewish communal life, we often confuse donation with authority. But if nothing is truly ours—not land, not wealth, not even time—then leadership must come from stewardship, not entitlement. From listening, not controlling. From humility, not hubris.
Behar teaches us that the most sacred thing we can do with power is let it go.
That’s the hardest part. Because whether we’re holding onto land, money, positions, or pride—we are told to release. To allow for cycles. To remember that none of it is forever, and that eternity is not found in possession, but in purpose.
This isn’t an argument against ambition. Judaism never asks us to reject prosperity. But it asks us to contextualize it. To see blessing not as something to own, but something to pass through. We are vessels, not vaults. And the holiest among us are those who remember that nothing truly belongs to them—not even their wisdom.
In a world where property rights are often treated as sacred, Parashat Behar insists that they are conditional. That they exist only in the shadow of something greater. That ownership is always trumped by stewardship.
And that maybe, just maybe, the land—and everything on it—is not a trophy, but a trust.