Behar: Proclaim Release

Plaut p. 850

Source Sheet by Yair Robinson

Perhaps one of the most famous texts in Tanakh, the text that found itself on the Liberty Bell, and therefore an appropriate text for this Memorial Day weekend, but not for why you would think. The Biblical text does not say anything necessarily about political liberty as the founding fathers imagined it. Rather, it talks about the Jubilee year. Like the Sabbatical Year, the land is required to go fallow. But additionally, everyone returns to their original family holdings, and more importantly, all slaves and indentured servants are to be released. We are reminded that Memorial Day grew out of the Civil War often before official commemoration, and in many communities throughout the South started as a project of Freed Black men and women, former slaves, who wanted to honor Union Soldiers who died in pursuit of a kind of liberty and justice for all. May we, too, be inspired by these words to continue that fight for real release from the burdens of oppression and bigoty, and as we remember those who died for this country, remember also what we hope and aspire that country to be. Amen.