Tag: Jubilees

Jubilee, Yom Kippur and Isaiah 61

This week’s Torah Portion, Behar (‘on the Mount’), is primarily about the seventh year Sabbaths and the year of Jubilee.  Leviticus 25 gives us many details of this joyous event of freedom that was commanded to occur every

From Wiki:Shofar... Old Jerusalem Yochanan ben Zakkai synagogue - A flask of oil and a shofar for the anointing of the eagerly-awaited Mashiach.[1]
From Wiki:Shofar… Old Jerusalem Yochanan ben Zakkai synagogue – A flask of oil and a shofar for the anointing of the eagerly-awaited Mashiach.[1]
50 years in Israel’s calendar.  On this date that began a Sabbatical year, slaves received freedom, debts were cancelled and land was returned to families who might have lost it during difficult circumstances.  What joy!

In our Torah study today at Davar Chaim, I pondered aloud the juxtaposition of this first day of Jubilees occurring on Yom Kippur, traditionally a day of mourning, of ashes, and of weakness induced by fasting.  Here is the verse,

8 ‘You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. 9 You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement Continue reading “Jubilee, Yom Kippur and Isaiah 61”