Summary:
In our portion, God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites that in every seventh year, the land shall observe a Sabbath of complete rest: Fields should not be sown and vines should not be pruned. After forty-nine years, a jubilee year is to be celebrated when all the land that had been sold during that time should be returned to its original owners and slaves are to be freed. God then instructs Moses to tell the Israelites not to make idols, to keep the sabbath, and to venerate the sanctuary of the Eternal.
Lessons from our Haftarah - Jeremiah 32:6-27:
Our Torah portion teaches about the importance of keeping a family’s title to their ancestral land. It commands that if a family member is in financial difficulty, another family member should come and help, so that his family can keep the land. Jeremiah, in our haftarah, actually fulfills this law in a symbolic way and in so doing brings hope to the people who are despairing while under attack by the Babylonians.
What could possibly be the most interesting aspect of our haftarah can be found in the present day Israel Museum in Jerusalem. In verse 12 we learn of a man named Baruch. It’s not often in the Torah or the Haftarah that we learn about people by name and it’s even more infrequent that we learn about someone whom we can prove, through archeology, actually existed.
In the Israel Museum a stamp-seal impression is on display. When a document was sealed, a wax stamp was placed on the closure. In the stamp was the seal of the scribe. In this stamp, we find and impression which reads: “property of Berach-yahu ben Neri-yahu, the scribe. With this ancient stamp impression, we find proof of a scribe named Baruch the son of Neriah – exactly the name of the person described in our haftarah.
Baruch, and Jeremiah, lived in a time when most people did not have the ability to read or write. While rulers and prophets were most likely literate, they always had scribes at their side, who transcribed their documents and kept their records. Baruch served in this role for Jeremiah.
Over the generations legends have been told about Baruch. He is known to have been loyal and steadfast, which earned him the love of the people. Several lesser- known books from the time tell tales of visions and miracles that he performed. While Jeremiah is the name most known, it is Baruch who is beloved by the people. And it is Baruch whom we actually meet, through his stamp, when we visit the Israel Museum.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Don Goor