The Second Letter
A wealthy man, known for his vast holdings and lifelong pursuit of more, left behind two letters before his death.
He instructed his family that the first was to be opened on the day of his burial, and the second exactly one week later.
When the first letter was opened, it contained an unusual request:
“I wish to be buried in my socks.”
His family was bewildered. Wanting to honour his final wish, they brought the matter before their rabbi.
The rabbi answered gently but firmly: according to halacha, a person is buried not in personal garments or possessions, but in simple shrouds. The request could not be fulfilled.
And so, the man was buried as Jewish law requires—without his socks.
A week later, the family gathered once more to open the second letter.
Inside, he had written:
“Now you understand. If I could not even take my socks with me, remember this well: a person takes nothing from this world into the next.”
Parashat Behar begins precisely where that lesson leaves off.
כִּי־לִי הָאָרֶץ
“For the land is Mine.”
(Vayikra 25:23)
This is far more than theological reflection. It is a direct challenge to the illusion of ownership that quietly shapes human life.
We build, acquire, plant, expand, and invest ourselves into what we believe we possess. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, our language shifts: my land, my property, my control.
But Behar dismantles that illusion.
Through Shemitah, the land itself must rest. Through Yovel, ancestral holdings return to their original families. Fields revert. Transactions dissolve. Human permanence is interrupted by G-d’s design.
The Torah does not deny human stewardship—it redefines it.
כִּי גֵרִים וְתוֹשָׁבִים אַתֶּם עִמָּדִי
“For you are strangers and sojourners with Me.”
(Vayikra 25:23)
We are not detached from the land, but neither are we its ultimate masters.
We dwell, build, and labor within it—but always as temporary stewards under a greater sovereignty.
This is the foundation beneath Behar’s economic, agricultural, and spiritual structure: possession is never absolute. Ownership belongs to G-d alone.
Rashi deepens this truth further, noting that even the land’s desolation carried covenantal meaning—it withheld its fullness from those outside their relationship with Hashem, for the Land of Israel itself is never neutral.
The Land of Israel is therefore not merely geography.
For generations, the Jewish people prayed toward it, longed for it, and carried it through exile not merely as territory lost, but as promise deferred.
And when the people returned, it was never solely political restoration—it was the renewal of covenant. A silent land began to answer once more.
Parashat Behar reminds us that exile is not merely displacement from land. The deepest exile begins when we forget that the land is Hashem’s, not ours—when possession replaces stewardship, and blessing is mistaken for entitlement.
The wealthy man’s letters were never truly about burial.
They were about illusion—the fragile human tendency to confuse temporary possession with lasting ownership.
We leave this world with nothing.
Yet while we are here, what we are entrusted with carries immense sacred responsibility.
And perhaps that is Behar’s enduring lesson:
Much of life is spent writing the first letter—living as though we own.
Wisdom begins when we are finally prepared to understand the second.
שבת שלום
שמואל
