Ya know, the Torah never ceases to amaze me. Every year we study the same chapters, the same verses, the same words. Every letter stays the same, the words themselves never change, but we do, and the world does. Life itself twists around and tumbles those precious words, reforming and revealing new patterns of challenge, wisdom, and logic like a scriptural kaleidoscope. That said, this year—given the socio-economic shenanigans that fill our world—this week’s Torah portion, B’har/B’chukotai comes bearing powerful news. I’d have to say it is nothing less than the biblical precursor to the Communist Manifesto. Honestly. And amen to that!

Check it out: Leviticus Chapter 25 is entirely devoted to an in-your-face radical economic construct. Come and see!! Among other things, Chapter 25 teaches us that every seven years we are to establish a period of rest for the land, when we are to refrain from cultivation. We may eat what comes up without our help, but we are not to work the land in this sabbatical year. Then, every 50th year, we are to establish the Yovel, the Jubilee year, and in that year we not only let the land rest but we are commanded to set all community financial scores back to zero. The text instructs us to free and/or redeem any of our community members who are enslaved; we are to forgive debt or make interest free loans; and we must revoke the ownership of any property we have purchased and restore it to its originally designated occupants. In fact, the text goes so far as to tell us that “…the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but resident strangers with Me.” (Lev. 25:23)

Dang that’s good!! Ya mean, we aren’t allowed to own land, and we are supposed to bail out our impoverished or enslaved or indebted kin with no eye towards makin’ a few bucks on the side? We are supposed to practice land conservation? We are supposed to ensure that everyone has what God says we are entitled to: a place to live, food to eat, a limit on financial embarrassment or glut, economic dignity and fiscal good will? Well I’ll be a Marxist’s uncle….

Wow.

I am absolutely floored by this chapter. It’s exhilarating!!! It makes me crazy excited, I pore over it, I just can’t get enough of it. I mean, imagine living in a society where ya knew that every 50 years all excesses and deficits would be brought back into balance, consciously and with the holy intent to carry out God’s plan. No filibusters, no grumping about, no more corporate bonuses, no more stock market. Stimulus packages? Duh, read my lips!!! Every 50 years a loud shofar blast would ring out, signaling a bright red “GAME OVER” sign to start flashing throughout the land. Donald Trump and Ted Turner lining up to give back their towers, ranches and estates. Another line, filled with faces we have seen on the side of the road, who have all tossed away their cardboard “Anything Helps” signs, shoutin’ out, “Hey honey, time to pull up these tent stakes and go back to our ancestral land! Good-bye freeway overpass tent village, the bad days are over!” Them what’s has: gives. Them what’s lost: gets. Pass go, collect $200.00. And it’s commanded!! Sheesh, don’t prosper from your kin’s misfortune, you sinners, cant’ your read? You’re commanded to help your brother, and reject the wages of sin!!! This is our Holy Bible layin’ out an economic plan that allows gain to be just a game—a game that allows the winners some fun, but doesn’t condemn the losers to eternal suffering. Come the Yovel, and we’ve got nothing to lose but our chains!!! I have to admit it, this chapter agitates my commie pinko heart into poundin’ like a jack hammer.

See, I have a dirty little secret, which is that Leviticus 25 wakes up a judgmental, finger pointin’, monster in me. I feel my head spin with adrenaline and I kinda want to say to all those folks in foreclosure, “Verily saith the Lord, what the hell did you expect?” Yeah, all my groovy Berkleyan compassion gets very slippery when I latch onto this chunk o’ Torah. There’s a part of me that gets all self-righteous and angry and I have to battle back the temptation to take a page out of Jerry Falwell, Louis Sheldon and Fred Phelps’ nasty little books of blame. I find myself envying their arrogance, ignorance, intolerance and chutzpah. Find a villain and a line of scripture backing you up, and go wild!!! Those guys have been so over the top, hammering on Leviticus 18:22, blaming the queer community for every thing from tsunamis and hurricanes, to diseases and catastrophic earthquakes. Think I’m kiddin’? Check out this gem:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’—Jerry Falwell regarding the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America

Incredible!!! And just to be fair, though I know it goes without saying, there are religious maniacs of every creed fueling hate with scripture and stirring up trouble all over the world—I’m just citing Falwell cuz, well, I knew him best—and because as a ‘homo’, I was the focus of his rage. I know what it feels like to be detested and reviled by those who have found scriptural sanctions for their hatred. What really blows me away, and honestly scares me a bit, is that despite being on the receiving end of scripturally backed loathing, I can get just as froth-mouthed and ugly as any of ‘em when the subject turns to my favorite sinners: investors and mortgage companies.

Now I don’t know about you, but when the Dow was sporting a spectacular nosebleed in the spring of 2008, I was secretly praying that some forked tongued fundamentalist would stumble upon Leviticus Chapter 25 and see the light. Maybe make the front page with a terrifying warning quoting scripture. But, no. While the stocks soared and housing prices approached obscenity and mortgages with fangs were being handed out to anyone who could sign their name, those guys were still sittin’ on their keisters worrying about the “threat” of Gay Marriage. Clearly an anti-bible crisis of epic proportion was brewing on Wall St., but where were the “A Yovel is Coming!!” commercials?? Where were the headlines, the placards and banners?: “Capitalist Sinners Demand Federal Protection for Their Chosen Lifestyle!!” “Politicians Legalize Interest-Only Mortgages in California!!” “Public Schools Push Capitalist Agenda On Children!!” “Millionaires: Why Do They Have To Flaunt It?!?”, “God Hates Homowners!!!”? It’s fascinating to me that the hellfire and brimstoners never took to beating on Leviticus Chapter 25 the way that they continue to tattoo 18:22, cuz I think they could have done a really great job…..

But they didn’t, and neither did I. So, why, when there is an entire chapter to work with didn’t I take up the sword and attack? Because, even though I too feel that intoxicating rush of anger and passion fueled by a piece of scripture that says “God is on MY side”, my spiritual practice says “Side schmide, don’t be a big idiot, God gets around.” Our Torah may sport a few verses that suppport my neo-socialist economic ideology, but it also teaches us V’ahavta l’reyacha k’mocha – that we shall love our neighbor as our self. Lest we forget, each of us is created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image. Each of us is a little fragment of God, each of us a broken off bit of the Holy Blessed One. No one individual is the whole picture, just as no one chapter and verse is the whole Torah. Each fragment has the capacity to spew hate, or yield to love. We have a choice. And at the end of the day, I think we do best when we choose love, compassion, and generosity. Easy to say, not so easy to actually do. Why? Well, God is a great big bundle of contradictions, one moment savage and the next tender. The Torah, it is said, is God’s love letter to us. Like all love letters, it’s a both easy and dangerous to get stuck on one paragraph, and totally miss the point of the whole missive.

The beauty of the Torah is it’s kaleidoscopic, mercurial, shimmery wisdom. Sure, this year, Leviticus 25 is perhaps a bit more relevant, maybe it is a chapter whose time has come. But that really isn’t what is important. What is important, as this Torah teaches us, is that those who are in the chips help the chip-less. What is important is that the righteous don’t allow themselves to gloat or condemn, but instead take upon themselves the obligation of being bighearted and openhanded. In my experience, a righteous person has about an equal chance of becoming a sinner as of saving one. As much as I am inclined to crow about the stock market collapse, that wouldn’t be at all nice or becoming, so, while I fully admit that I carry the same arrogance and hubris of my detractors, I’ll pray for less hellfire and more patience. I read the paper and do my best to rustle up the strength to not shout, “I told you so!” “What did you expect?” “The stock market IS a pyramid scheme.” “God loves Bernie Madoff!!” It is comforting to think that some member of the Traditional Values Coalition is out there doing the same.

I hope that the passages of scripture that tempt any of us to degrade or scapegoat or dismiss the suffering of our fellows are simply there to make us stronger in our resolve to be caring and kind. Hey, if Iowa is any indication, I believe that there are a whole bunch of folks out there who are chomping down on their tongues, while extending a civil right to a group of have-nots. Our task as scripturally interested people, homophobes and commie pinkos alike, is to place our faith in God’s benevolence, not It’s wrath. The trick is to resist the temptation to reduce the Torah down to a set of self-affirming polemics. A trick yet to be mastered. May we all know a time, speedily and soon, when our love for the Torah is rooted in the acceptance of our spiritual challenges, rather than hiding behind scriptural excuses for our limitations and fears? Our rabbi Ben Bag Bag, of blessed memory said, “Turn it, turn it, turn it, for every thing is in it.” (Pirke Avot 5:25) And let us say: Amen to that.

Maggid Jhos Singer received ordination/semicha from Rabbi Gershon Winkler in 2002, and has served the Coastside Jewish Community in Half Moon Bay, California, as their rabbi/maggid since 2000. Jhos holds a degree in music from UCLA and when he isn’t preaching to the flock he is playing and singing with them. Maggid Singer especially loves teaching on the paradoxical, profound, perilous and paranormal ways of the Jewish path. Being transgender, Maggid Singer is well suited to understand and transmit the Torah’s many contradictions and complexities with insight, love, deep faith and good humor. Singer lives in Berkeley, California, where he tends a clutch of young children and enjoys a wonderful relationship with his bashert.

It is the humor, the knowledge, the originality, and the gift in Jhos' writing that continues to engage me. His personable style is appealing, and is a welcome shift from the predictable and rather boring scholarly style. There is always a wonderful teaching in his writing that causes one to think differently than before. Thank you for including Jhos in your forum.

This is brilliant, right-on and challenging!

As another fragment of God, I'm so glad to have read Maggid Jhos' Torah here. We have so much work to do in order to elevate the discourse on dignity, and this Parasha (emulsified through Jhos' soul) brings the message home. As Jhos wrote, "all we've got to lose are our chains." Amen, Amen, Amen!